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.

November 5, 2007

One of the things people have said about my artwork is that it tends to promote mental vacations. Translation: Dreams about Art. This blog will be a launchpad, I hope, for enjoyable experiences for many viewers as I share my thoughts and paintings with you.


Who am I? I am an only child, a caring mother and grandmother, my husband’s best friend. I love my family and my friends. I love kitties. I am an award-winning artist, graduated with a degree from Colorado State University in Art Education. When I am making art, I can lose myself in it. Athletes call it “the zone.” I recognize it as a very productive segment of “lost” time. I should set an alarm clock if I have something important I must do.



What do I do? I am a watercolorist. Many times my media is 100% watercolor, but I find it fun and more interesting to be free to add acrylics or collage materials to my watercolor paintings. For a change I will also paint in acrylics. I use strong colors and try to include values from very light to very dark in most every painting, even beach paintings.



Enough for now. Here's a painting to start you thinking.