Work in Progress...

This is my first painting attempt using fluid acrylics from the outset. I love how they flow almost like watercolors. However, they dry very quickly so I was behind the eight ball as far as edge control goes on this larger format (22x15 inches). Stay tuned as I'm definitely not done with this one... Happy Valentines Day! Retweet this

Collage work...

I realize I'm posting a lot of work in progress these days - that seems to be the journey I'm on right now. Completing projects is really not the goal. When working with watercolor I "finished" paintings. Now I realize that was likely due to the simple fact watercolor is immediate and relatively unforgiving. It is meant to be planned carefully and executed quickly... not worked over and over. HOWEVER, that is not the case with collage. It's just a matter of stopping when you like it. At this point I just continue to build and respond to what is happening on the support.

I continued to putter at this collage during class yesterday and again today. I'm excited about the direction (figures -yikes!) and the subject. Thanks to all my classmates and Sharon for comments and suggestions made during the critique we did yesterday (color dominance was a big issue)! It made me step back and think about what I am trying to say with the painting. I did have some identified figures a couple of days ago but the concept needed firming up... and I'm pretty happy with the changes I've made so far.

This work speaks to me about the stuff of life. Embracing life, loss, hope, blessings, the future, sharing, caring... before I start writing poetry I'll sign off. Enjoy!

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Abstraction with Collage

Here's a photo of the current state of a piece I am working on. I'm kind of going on a "feed the world" theme here. I saw the outline of a farmer's head and then an african person... and it puttered along with that theme up to this point. Sometimes these things change over a long period of time and I'm sure this will be no exception. Enjoy! Retweet this

sketching and doodling

I've been to Banff and come home inspired once again! My husband had what turned out to be day surgery Thursday in Banff Mineral Springs Hospital. So I brought along my sketch book and puttered a bit between pampering him. His room looked out onto a little stand of trees with a mountain in the distance. I did some sketching of the trees and snow shadow shapes, etc. It was beautiful and restful there. Today I continued with a value study based [roughly] on one of my thumbnails.

Next stop - color studies of the same subject...

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DVD Review - Ann Baldwin's "Telling Stories with Collage and Paint"

Our Monday class is in the middle of a collage unit so viewing Ann Baldwin’s “Telling Stories with Collage and Paint” was timely and inspirational for me. It was also a great art activity for a day when staying vertical was not an option. I love this about art - even when I have to rest my achey back I can still have fun!
Back to the DVD... Ann is really a mixed media painter as opposed to a straight collage artist, so this live workshop video was also a good source of information about working with acrylic paints & mediums. She has a fun and fearlessly loose style based on her belief that virtually anything that happens in the painting that she doesn’t like can be changed. This feels quite freeing for me after working hard to protect the whites and avoid over painting in watercolor.
During the course of the nearly 2 hour workshop, Ann completes a demo painting. She begins with collage, then glazes, textures, re-glazes, and repeats until she is satisfied with the result. Ann shares her thought process as she works through the demo. I found her responses to what she liked and didn’t like, why she put elements in a particular spot and why she abandoned the original theme to follow another most fascinating.
Here are a few specifics that I found helpful:
· Discussion of how to avoid copyright issues – in particular a link to the Copyright Information Center at Cornell University.
· Ann spends some time on the computer upgrading smaller lower quality images to ensure high enough quality for her larger format pieces. She talks about alternatives for this work including incrementally photocopying, printing digitally, etc.
· Golden products are used throughout and since I haven’t worked with many of these products, I found her descriptions of how to work with them useful.
· Nitrile gloves – Ann uses them all the time because many of the pigments she uses are toxic. Also, she finds they give her the freedom to manage all the mucking about in the paints that she likes to do.
· The slowing down stage – I’ve never heard it called this but it was nice to know that others have to force themselves to slow down and even shelve a piece for hours/days while their brain catches up. This happens in every painting I do. It can take anywhere from a few minutes onward to figure out the next move – lots of paintings I’ve started are still stuck and I’m beginning to believe that this is normal. It’s a nice feeling to have the “FINISH IT” pressure off.
· Ann critiques the workshop students’ work and, although I always find these helpful, I’m used to a more direct approach to pointing out problems. Over the past 3 years I’ve benefited most from hearing what could have been done to avoid, or what could be done to correct, etc PROBLEMS in my works as well as in the work of other students. Of course the good must be praised and Ann does a lovely job of that. Possibly the critiques that I would have found most helpful were simply edited out...

I certainly enjoyed this DVD and I’m looking forward to putting the inspiration to good use. As a result of this DVD, I have added half a dozen items to my art “wish list”... Good thing my birthday is coming up ;) Cheers! Retweet this

Abstract... the end of the beginning

I've pretty much finished with this abstract start... for now. Since last post I added the smaller dots and the little line in the upper right.

At that point I wasn't happy with how it looked. I reviewed my composition notes from last Wednesday's class and decided to darken the bottom left corner and that seemed to improve things quite a bit. Doing the abstract has given me some insight into my own head. For example, I realize that I am very attracted to the play of lights against darks with minor mid-values. And so the journey continues... enjoy your weekend!

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Red Trees revisited

I've revisited the infamous red tree composition and made another attempt in watercolor. Here is the result. I'm much happier with this painting than I was with the original watercolor. I was able to keep the feeling of the light coming through the trees in this version. Come daylight tomorrow I do plan to make a couple of changes to this painting so, as usual, I'll keep you posted ;o)

As I type this I am sitting at Ron's computer desk and wow, is it ever uncomfortable! My [Dell] laptop (aka "craptop") had the video card wrap up it's ONE year of useful life yesterday. It is on warranty so I will ship it off to Dell tomorrow and I should have it back in about a week. This isn't the first time it's had to go back either. Happy camper?... not me! Buyers be warned! And now I have to move my purple bracelet (why? click here). Have a great evening!

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