New ACEOs

It was fun this afternoon painting these new ACEOs. They are, like all ACEOs (Artist Cards Editions & Originals), exactly 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. These are all painted on Arches 140-lb. Cold Press Watercolor paper. I loved painting these little stylized poppies.
I laid them all down on a shiny black gesso-painted tissue paper surface, and thought it was fun how much they look like they were almost meant to be together as one. I will be putting them into my Etsy shop soon.

Speaking of black gesso-painted tissue paper, the black gesso makes an extraordinary transformation happen when it is applied to ordinary tissue paper. To try this, make sure you have a plastic bag underneath while painting. The white kitchen bags with the drawstrings work nicely if you cut them open on one side and the bottom and then open them out. The reason for using the shiny white plastic as a surface to paint the tissue paper on is that when it's dry, it's easy to peel off. The resulting product is almost rubbery and makes an interesting collage material. I used it for Molly's hat in my latest Fashion Diva. See previous post.

Painting On Tissue Paper

I had what I call a spirit painting on a piece of watercolor paper with a variety of pastels that seemed a bit too bright for a background. To get a good background this way, wet the watercolor paper thoroughly, let it reach the "sheen" stage, and then drop in the watercolor colors you want. This technique works well to start a modern type of floral where you aren't painting from reality, but you can tell it looks like what it is supposed to be. It's a good start from which to begin painting negatively.

So anyway this particular background was too intense, so I got the idea to cover it with tissue paper which muted the colors considerably. I just applied pieces of tissue paper to the watercolor paper using acrylic gel medium. I liked the result and ended up making two paintings out of it. One of them is a cute little clothesline painting using the scenes I remembered from our Italian trip.

It makes a nice little piece of whimsey! It's painted in acrylics with black marker and a white gel pen to finish up.

For more information, click here.

(This painting sold in February.)

Paradise Input Decoder Devices

This acrylic painting of Birds of Paradise flowers has a "Space Invaders" look to it. I intentionally wanted it to have an abstract nature and kept from using true colors and utilized a gradated, textured background to further promote this effect. First I did some thumbnail sketches and chose one with a Papa, Mama, Baby bear composition (that is a large shape, a medium shape and a small-sized shape). Then I used two layers of gradated White Gesso, Hansa Yellow and Cadmium Red Medium to get a nice thick background before starting on the drawing for the "birds."

Once I started on the "birds" I found I needed a couple coats of the White Gesso to get a thick enough layer. The next step was to pick up the colors in the background and use them in defining the "birds." I had left the medium "bird" all white until almost the very end when I decided to use a little bit of the brown on it.

I had printed out on 8 1/2" x 11 paper, some red-brown Photoshop effects of my digital photograph of the real Birds of Paradise photo taken at Pinellas County, Florida's Botanical Gardens as well as some other photos. This effect was so cool looking that I decided use it in my painting by collaging some of it onto my canvas using Acrylic Matte Medium.

The final steps involved using some textures to blend in the collaged parts with the painting and also to achieve the darkest of the dark colors. The result seems other-worldly, and I began to think of the "birds" as other-worldly devices coming to Planet Earth to check it out and report back to the other-world, in this case picking up the paradise from the "birds." That's how the name came about. WoooooOOOOHHHHHH!

This painting is large: 40 x 30 inches on gallery-wrapped canvas which has been painted on the sides, thus eliminating the need for a frame. It has been protected with a layer of Glossy Acrylic Medium and Varnish. It will be on display at Studio1212 Gallery in Clearwater, Florida from June 1st to June 25th in the "Canvas and Then Some" exhibit. I'm also showing it in my Etsy shop, DreamON. For more information, click here.

The Beach, Mud Pies and Pears

These are some pictures I took yesterday when my husband and I were at the beach. Since there were quite a few fishermen trying their luck, there were also a number of shore birds hoping to tag onto someone's rejects, or maybe sneak some bait. These egrets are so beautiful and white that I always am amazed they look so clean. Frequently we see them up to their knees (I guess they have knees) in swampy-looking water, still looking white! Anyway, I love them, and watching them is fun.

Today, I have been making mud while painting, and that hasn't been so fun. I struggled to finally get something decent, and I still think I have some work to do on this one. It was another beautiful day outside, and I think my mind and body wanted to be out there. Sometimes I think I should just listen, because you can't force painting to turn out right if you are tired or just not in the mood. I should have gone out for awhile and then done some ironing or something.

This painting I am calling Pears and Squares. Its size is 9 1/2 x 15 inches, and it is, like the previous one (Refreshments) watercolor in the first layer with the remainder of layers painted in acrylic.

I don't think the pears are well-defined enough yet, so that means I will need to go back in and solve that problem in another session. You could say that painting a picture is a little like doing a puzzle, it has to be solved. Since I was struggling with my mud pies, I ran out of time to solve this puzzle today.

It was so late when I stopped painting that the flash on the camera came on when I took the photo, so I would need to take a better photo anyway, one without the glare even if I didn't need to do something else to the painting.

Another painting I have been re-working is the Eye of the Ocean, and now it doesn't look anything like it did when I talked about it on the blog a week or so ago. When it gets done, I may bring it back as a topic again. Would you like to see what it becomes?

In the meantime, I need to go to the beach more often. It is so incredible out there!

Refreshments: Painting A Day

This week has been pretty much occupied with the preparations required for delivering 30 pieces of art to a couple of local venues serviced by the Creative Artists' Guild. These venues are part of the rotating art exhibits which the various participating artists of the guild fill from month to month. I have a two-month exhibit of my paintings in the Bel-Aire Cafe in Clearwater with three other artists and at Somers Title Company in Palm Harbor where my paintings are shown in a single-artist exhibit. These exhibits are in addition to locations where I exhibit year 'round at Studio 1212 Gallery in Clearwater, Grecko Grill in Madeira Beach and at the Artists' Guild Gallery in Holmes Beach. All of these locations are in the Tampa Bay, Florida area.

My new painting of the day, Refreshments, is an acrylic over watercolor on Arches Cold Press Watercolor paper. The dimensions are 12 1/2 x 15 inches. Click here for purchase information.

The technique I used was described earlier in the blog and is the same one used in Escape of the Little Boats and Spring Fling, the only difference being that I used a layer of watercolor first before negative painting in three succeeding layers of acrylics.

I Haven't Disappeared

There are other facets to the art biz besides making art, and although that's what I'd rather be doing right now, the fact is I'm working hard doing some matting and framing for a couple of exhibits.

Although I haven't finished a new painting today, I thought I would put a new one up on the blog anyway. This one is called Can You Hear Me Now? It is an acrylic, marker and watercolor mixed media on watercolor paper. I started by using an acrylic heavy gel and just creating some texture on the paper. At this point I had no idea what I would be painting, and I let the paper dry and sit for about a week. The next time I looked at it, I just "saw" banana leaves, so the parrot seemed a natural fit for a subject. I drew these things on with a pencil to use the drawing for a roadmap before painting.

When watercolor goes on top of acrylic, it is very slick and moves around a lot, so the result is a nice loose painting. I love the colors in this painting. At the end, I did some outlining with a black marker to define form. There is a huge amount of texture in this painting that you just cannot see in the photo, but it's there -- all over the place.

Jumpin Grande Joe

This collage came about as the result of my testing a new product I had bought a few months ago. The store demo of Pinata Colors I saw, with these denatured alcohol mixed colors, was done on a very small scale. The clerk had a small piece of wood on one end of which had been applied a piece of felt. She dropped a few beads of a couple colors onto a card, wiped around with the felt dauber, and presto there appeared some beautiful stained-glass appearing designs on the paper which were enhanced by applying the Pinata extender. She also made it look even more wonderful by using a gold metallic marker.

An inherent issue with this media seemed to be the fact that the little bottles of color seemed too small to use in a larger project , so I decided to use some thinned out red acrylic in addition and add the extender to all of them. My additional red color didn't react the same way as the Pinata colors which the bottle said are indelible in water, transparent, permanent and acid free, but I did like the way the white Pinata color worked especially well.

The project turned out to be a collage of cut up watercolor coffee cups added. I called the painting Jumpin Grande Joe, because when I decided to enhance the rhythm of the composition by angling the coffee cups and sugar bowl. I used repetition in the figure 8's and the curves of the cup handles, and I varied the line width of the calligraphy. The mostly-warm composition is enhanced by the cool and cooler blue coffee cups. The black coffee cup, as center of interest sits adjacent to a larger light which with the white calligraphy takes up about 25 percent of the mid-value background. The yellow string adds another point of interest and texture variation.

Find out more about Jumpin Grande Joe in my Etsy shop by clicking here .

Paulette Insall Mixed Media Artist

Preparing for this feature has been soooo much fun! Being an artist myself, I really enjoyed watching Paulette paint - in her YouTube videos that also appear on her blogs. In addition was the choice I made to listen to the music she listens to while painting, which I did and loved, because that is also an option on Paulette Insall Mixed Media Artist (just one of her blogs). She has the coolest widgets on her blogs that to my way of thinking makes her a techno-genius as well as a super artist. Like I said, I really enjoyed myself while I was getting ready to write, and I could have hung around a lot longer, but I really needed to get on with it!!!!

I chose to include Paulette's print (above left) entitled Choices, because I liked the story behind the painting. It's the old "behind door number one is. . ." (only in this case it's window number one), and according to Paulette's story, the windows represent life's choices. She says, "If I had made different choices, would I have become what I am today? No, I wouldn’t.The heartaches, the suffering, the ups, the downs…they all made me the person I am. I wouldn’t have the life I have now without them…and I wouldn’t change a thing."

To the right is an original painting entitled Pondering. This painting has a beautiful softness to it and is inspired by the artist's son, and her realization of how the time we have with our little ones passes in the blink of an eye. She says, "Being a mom, there are many special moments with my son that I cherish, but some of the things I cherish and reflect on the most are the every day things….talking with my son about what happened at school that day, bedtime stories, coloring, playing games…things that I know that all too soon will just be memories."

This Portland, Oregon artist has been involved in creative activities since she was a child, but was not a painter until much more recently. She says that she dreamed of painting and from the looks of what's in her shop, she dreamed these paintings, planning well ahead. Very cool.

Blessings is the title of the painting on the bottom right. The story behind this one is, "Many times we don’t see all the blessings we have in our lives. While some are obvious, many come to us in disguise. Some may not seem like blessings at first, but in time they reveal themselves. God fills our lives with so many blessings…whether or not we choose to see them is up to us."
Her philosophy of life, really, is very well expressed in her Artist's Statement. "My art is about the search for connection…to self, to like minded spirits, to family, and to God. Most of my work depicts a sole woman because these are the stories of my own personal search and the emotions they invoke within my soul. My hope is that the visual stories I create with my art touch people from all walks of life and let them know that they are not alone…and find comfort in that knowing. " This is beautifully expressed in her artwork. One can sense mood and substance from her paintings and know that this is a person with depth.

To see some of what Paulette Insall has available for us to behold, please enjoy the following sites:
http://pauletteinsall.etsy.com/
http://www.pauletteinsall.com/blog
http://web.mac.com/pauletteinsall/Paulette_Insall/Artist_Features/Artist_Features.html

Painting of the Day: Reclamation Project

Today was painting day for a group I belong to, Studio1212 Gallery, which I thoroughly enjoy. I brought along some old paintings, thinking I might either paint on the backs of them, or add some collage materials to them. Once there, one of my fellow painters came up with the suggestion of combining paintings together. That's a very good reason I paint with other artists -- the exchange of ideas and helpful critiques. The other obvious benefit is that painting with others is a social event in the otherwise solitary, painting life of an artist.

Going from there I cut one painting roughly in half, deciding it might make two nice little paintings or a good card and a painting. The first one was a mountain scene which I tore into two pieces, thinking each would make a pretty nice little painting or perhaps a card. Then I put them aside.

The other one was a painting of a rooster I had cropped at some point. The chicken's head was clearly too close to the edge of the painting. I placed it on top of a couple of other old paintings that were primarily abstract background pieces, one after the other, to decide which one I would glue it onto. When I had made the decision, I tore the edges of the watercolor paper to give a deckled edge effect. Then I glued the one with torn edges to the background painting. Then I put it aside while it dried and worked on the mountain painting. Later I worked with a brayer and acrylic gold and purple, and then I added additional brushwork to get the two paintings to mesh.

To prepare for the mountain painting , I painted with acrylic paints on some textured materials to be used as stamps on a clean sheet of watercolor paper. After drying, I mounted the second painting onto the now textured paper. This project didn't require as much blending, but needed something to interrupt the straight line of the tree as it went straight up, so I put a little texture on that too.

I still have the other portion of the mountain painting to use.

Try it sometime. You might be surprised at the results.