prismacolor pencils on western red cedar branch and creek rock
i drew the heart on the rock and then i thought, hmmmm... i could put this rock in the crook of this stick... and then i was delighted, hee! i've been working on this stick on and off all summer...

a poor pic of some of it... it's leaning near my chair - i like to gaze at it...
by the time this post goes up i'll be in ashland, oregon with the lovely roxanne, and the women in this post. we're getting together for another show, and i really do imagine i'll be laughing and talking up a storm right about now...
* * *
“The real artist’s work is a surprise to himself.”
~ Robert Henri, via Mary Ann Wakeley's tumblr
XO
'i know a sensitive soul when i see one' ~ gouache, watercolors, oil and soft pastels,casein paint in milton book
XO
watercolors, casein paint and pogo print in milton book
the pogo print is of a photograph that i saw on tumblr. i made the image as full sized as it would go, then i took a picture of it and printed it out on the pogo printer. somehow it seems amazing to me that i can take a digital picture of a digital image and then print it out on 'paper'!
colored pencil, watercolors, gouache, oil pastel and pogo print
some people have asked how accurate the pogo prints are, and the answer is, it depends... sometimes they're accurate, and sometimes they're not. it helps to fool around with your camera settings and see what works best. but in the end i try to be happy with whatever comes out - i think of the printer as an artist who has her own mind about the way things should look. ; )
* * *
'curtain call' ~ andrew wyeth
“There are no rules in my work. I don’t really have studios. I wander around — around people’s attics, out in fields, in cellars, any place I find that excites me. I dream a lot. I do more painting when I’m not painting. It’s in the subconscious. I begin to see an emotion building up in my mind before I ever put it down on the panel… Sometimes I do my best work after the models have gone away, purely from memory. And that’s what makes me laugh when critics say I’m photographic. I’m not photographic at all. Nothing against the camera, but it doesn’t work with me.”
~Andrew Wyeth, via tumblr
XO
casein paint, watercolors, inktense pencils, beeswax & muslin
* * *
prismacolor pencils and beeswax on creek rocks
XO
colored pencils, watercolors and pogo print in milton book - 4" x 6"
* * *
wild shasta lilies ~ july 19th
XO
analyzing the surface of audrey
clarification...
so i don't think that i made it very clear as to exactly *why* i'd be putting a fixative on beeswax except to keep the pages in my book from sticking together... the other reason is that i'm getting ready to be part of a show at the end of the month, and i can't sell these pieces unless they have some kind of protective fixative on them. i typed in all of the stuff that's on the surface of the wax on audrey... she was painted on the teabag too, but then this stuff was added to bring out what was underneath...
yeah, so that's why... ; )
if you're wondering about the buff titanium watercolor of her dress (i'd be!!), it's from daniel smith. it is dense, good stuff. roz has it in her gouache set; that's where i found out about it.
'her wings were invisible' ~ with wax and black casein paint
on another note, i put wax over 'her wings were invisible', and then black casein paint in the outline. i like her better now - she's more interesting to me...
* * *
“It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture.”
Cy Twombly, via tumblr
XO
audrey ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag
a few weeks ago a friend told me about the spray fixative, PYM II... at the time i was using krylon low odor, which in my opinion is anything but low odor, but it was one of the least toxic fixatives that i could find, so i got it. PYM II sounded good... it does not carry a CA prop 65 label and it's 'VOC exempt'. while it smells awful when you're spraying it, within a couple of minutes 95% of the smell is gone, and within a couple of hours there is literally no smell at all. the beeswax smells just like beeswax again...
this is how stiff audrey is with her beeswax and PYM II coating.
i wrote to the folks at PYM II as soon as i got it to ask if it was compatible with beeswax. within hours i got an answer from doug, the man who came up with the PYM II formula. here's the gist of what he said:
"You have given me a very good question....
I had to look up the chemical formula for beeswax. C15H31COOC30H61 that includes oleate esters of long-chain (30-32 carbons). Beeswax is a tough wax formed from a mixture of several compounds. TBAc is CH3COOC4H9 is the solvent in PYM II and is very similar to beeswax (tert-butyl ester) ...Yes it should have a good bond..."
gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag in milton book
in case it's helpful, i wanted to pass this on to you... i've sprayed all of the beeswax pages in my book with it.
gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag in milton book
it's slightly shiny, but not really as shiny as these pics make it appear.
adele ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, oil pastel and beeswax on teabag in milton book
initially i left a few wax pages unsprayed, and then left my book out in the sun (what was i thinking?). there was no comparison between what happened to the sprayed and unsprayed pages. the unsprayed ones stuck like crazy (i.e. a lot of wax came off on the opposing page), while the sprayed ones were slightly sticky, but the wax was firmly in place.
it comes in an aerosol and a non aerosol (finger pump) version... i just bought the non aerosol to see how it works.
* * *
shasta lily
XO