New Art

I am going to renew my committment to produce a painting a day, or at least 4 to 5 times a week. Since painting and making art are how I came to have a blog and a shop on Etsy, it is now time to concentrate on making art. I intend to blog on processes when I find them to be especially interesting or helpful to me in hopes that someone else will try them out and find them the same.

I have been working on a couple of series(es) or seriae as the word police prefer. One is about martinis, and the other is Fashion Divas. I have found that Fashion Divas come in all shapes, ages, personalities and sizes. This seems to make them more interesting. The latest "Fashion Diva," who is I might add totally different from the previous four, is Thelma. I found Thelma when doing monoprints in a workshop.

How to Do a Monoprint Using An Old Painting and Some Acrylic Paint

The method is to take an old painting that isn't working and do a drawing or design on that painting with needle-nosed squeeze bottles of acrylic paint. Thelma was my drawing and Pearl is the monoprint onto Yupo (plastic sheet).

Step One. You mark your original and your monoprint with an "X" in a couple of places (which are matched by the "X") so that you will be able to "register" them if you print a second or third time with another color or design.

Step Two. You do a line drawing (black is a good choice) using the acrylic in the needle-nosed bottle.

Step Three. With your original on the table, place the sheet you are printing on on top of your original, and registering your "X" marks exactly matching the two sheets, lightly rub your hand around on the back of what will be the print.

Now you have two. You will find, with practice that you won't want to use the same pressure all over the sheet as you rub. You will also find that you won't want to try to do too much small detail, as this will create big blobs on your papers.

Step Four. If you are going to print again using other colors, let each layer dry first. You don't have to color all over your print, you might just want to do hair or another small portion and use just a small sheet as a blotter. You will need to do some additional artwork to finish up the background to your liking using additional techniques such as stamping.

Now I'm going to introduce you to Thelma and Pearl.



So, for today, here are Thelma (finished) and Pearl in her current state.

Two of the girls in the Fashion Diva series (Claudette and Marcee) are now available as reproduction prints in my Etsy store. I will post Thelma (original) today.



Right here: http://dreamon.etsy.com/