Extreme Composition Lesson 5 I

Real courage is displayed by those who are afraid to go, but go. (Anonymous)

On large cheap drawing paper make marks in various methods
Make a viewfinder and isolate and develop one area and then another. 
Connect those areas, and then connect with the whole. 

I made about 6 starts here are first 2

50 x 36 cm

Random marks 

Spread with credit card

50 x 36 cm

Random marks 

Worked two areas with lines

veiling, transparent collage pieces

View-finder 19 x 19 cm

50 x 36 cm

Random marks

Large brush stroke 

Lifted and blotted with small paper

Bristol

50 x 36 cm

Random marks

Large brush stroke 

Two worked areas

Crayon work and penwork

View-finder 15 x 20 cm

Please excuse photography, I see now part was in shadow.

Final resolutions coming! Para Para!!!

Jane's advise!

Finally: resolve the piece. This, of course, is the hard part, and it is up to you to find a way to do this. Take your time. Each piece will be different, and some will not lend themselves so easily to resolution. Do your best. If your piece is at a standstill, unresolved, leave it. Move on. Don’t agonize, and feel free to post pieces that you feel are unresolved. Just don’t say “This Piece Sucks” or anything like that!

Dotty's advise!

Find your brave spot!

Extreme Composition Lesson 4 Variety Variety Variety

Lesson 4 is all about variety. The first exercise was to make as many marks on a paper with no background, using crayons, ink, paint, cutouts etc. Now I  have to go back and doodle more on some of the marks.
There were questions to ask oneself.

• How difficult was it not to repeat elements?
I found it quite difficult, I have to increase my library of mark making.

 • Do any of your collections look like interesting compositions in themselves? Or do they all look disjointed?
Very disjointed

• Are they fun to look at?
Yes in a way

• Did you discover any new ways of making marks?
Yes

• Did you use processes or materials that felt uncomfortable to you? 
No, not really. Tried pen and ink which was new for me.

• How difficult was it not to paint a background or connect the elements with some unifying principle?
Slightly uncomfortable.

Next part is to make three distinct marks and connect them in various ways!
I made 3 pages of marks!!! Click to enlarge!

 Bye for now!

Extreme Compositions Color Fields 1

Lesson 3

Texture with color

Experiment with different techniques using layering,printing, with different values of various hues to create color interest and texture. It is supposed to be monochromatic in nature, which in some of my cases went a  bit astray. Will have to do this exercise again, but wanted to post the first group. I made a montage of the samples. Click to enlarge.

Greens

Reds and oranges

Extreme Compositions Shape Arrangements 3

Lesson 2

Part 3

In this exercise we are to make compositions using 2 or more shapes plus a line. These can be on a colored background and differ from one another.

Since I am still having difficulties with acrylics I used a simple limited pallete trying various techniques, brayer, credit card, wetting paper. For my shapes and lines used dry media, Caran d'Ache neocolor I wax/oil crayons. All done on 5 x 7 " bristle paper

 

Background was brayed left over paint that made interesting shapes

Added shapes with crayons

Line think white.. gel pen

Colored background 

Crayon shapes

White gel pen

Gray background with white shape and ochre line acrylic

Square shape crayon

Fine permanent pen 

Acrylic yellow background

Gray circles printed from cap shape

Crayon square

Lines ball point pen

Background acrylic using stencil and print

Circle crayons 

Lines ball point pen

Observations: Feel I still need more practice with these small compositions. Found adding the lines sometimes difficult. have to stop thinking too much. 

Have a few more starts to play with 

Extreme Compositions Shape Arrangements 2

Lesson 2

Part 2 

Arrangements of one shape, black, gray, and white, circles. I really tried to work one these more intuitively and take risks. Some were done on backgrounds of black acrylic paint done with a brayer. Left over paints from the previous series. Used mostly dry media, ink intense pencils, watercolor crayons, oil pastels, plus water in some cases blotted with tissue.  All were done on 5 x 7" white bristle. 

#1

Brayed acrylic background

Right oval stenciled with alcohol

watercolor crayons with blotted water

Extreme Composition Shape Arrangments I

Lesson 2

Part 2  a

Arrangements of simple shapes using the vocabulary learned in the first part of the lesson.
Restrictions were to use one shape and only gray,black and white.
Did these in acrylic using stamps,printing, masks, and collage on 5 x 7 " white bristle paper.

#1

Playing with Shapes Extreme Composition

Lesson II 

Part 1

Fall is at last in the air!!! A very short season here. We even had 10 minutes or less of rain. IT still warms up during the day but cooler evenings and we are now off Daylight Savings,, so will get dark earlier. 

Last week went by so fast that aside from working at my weekly workshop, I didn't get to my online course  Extreme Composition . 

Explore different techniques for creating simple shapes. Try to find different techniques than those shown in the video.  This is just a page filled at random of various techniques, don't know if I found any really different on but as I go along I probably will.

Extreme Composition 3

Jane Davies Extreme Composition

Lesson  1  Series Backgrounds and Line Drawing


Jane strongly believes in making limitations when making a series. So with this last exercise in lesson 1 we are to choose the colors, format size, and drawing tools to make a series of backgrounds and dancing lines. Not all colors and drawing tool have to be used in each painting but the series should have a consistent  feeling.

All painted on white bristle paper, 9.5 x 9.5 " Th colors used were 2 grays, 2 oranges one quite neon that did not photograph true, 2 dulled gray-greens, and white. I mixed the grays using ultramarine blue and raw umber and then adding white.  The greens were mixed using the grays plus yellow.
Line drawings were made with black watercolor pencil brushed with water, white oil pastel, gray crayon, green crayon, and orange crayon

I made 10 backgrounds but used only seven for the final line drawings. In a few, I used a brayer to make some softer transitions.

 My Observations

First I need much more practice in handling acrylic paint.

I think for my first series I should have made a smaller format.

I am pretty happy with my gray-green mixes.

Line drawing is quite bold and similar maybe

I should have done more variation.
Feel I succeeded in making a consistent series,

Click on images to view larger in lightbox

Playing with Acrylics

Well I finally jumped in to investigate some rather cheap acrylics that I bought some time ago and never opened. First I opened them to see what colors I have compared to my oil paints

Wanted to see which were opaque and which more transparent.  Also played around with a bit of mixing, especially interested in mixing my grays, which surprisingly was quite pleased, without black. I am still not used how fast the paints dry, and how to make soft edges.

 Did one on brown paper, bottom, which didn't come out so great so I will quad it. I now know which colors I may want to add to my collection.

I can now do Part 3 of lesson 1 of  Extreme  Compositions.   and choose what colors, format, and which drawing mediums I will use for my lines. 

Click to Enlarge

Extreme Composition 2

Lesson 1 Part 2 Dancing Lines on Colored Backgrounds

We were to paint colored backgrounds with soft transitions and low contrast on which to draw lines.
I worked on heavy 23 x 30 cm, brown paper mainly with watercolor crayons and water medium, one was done with OP and turps. I know that with paints the backgrounds would be much different. I will have to take that jump and learn how to handle acrylic paints.

Click on Images to enlarge

Background Watercolor Crayons with Water

Lines

White Oil Pastel

Black Graphite Stick

Pink Crayon

Background Oil Pastels

Lines

Black Oil Pastel

Ball Point Pen

White Marker

The colors in the photo are way off

Orange should be light pink !!!!

Background Watercolor Crayons with Water

Lines

Medium Marker

Sepia Stick

Background Watercolor Crayons with Water

Lines

Fine Marker

White Marker

 I find it still difficult to free myself with all the concepts of painting and just really be free to explore. 

New Directions Extreme Composition 1

During the 30 x 30 challenge this past September I was impressed by the work of one artist, Dotty Seiter that caught my eye at first because she was working in  B&W. I also was working mainly in charcoal and gray and white pastels. I was impressed with the works she was doing following an online course by Jane Davies,  She was doing the 100 drawings on the bottom of the page.
Following Dotty each day and seeing how her work was developing I decided that I should try one of the courses. This is my new direction. October is a month of holidays and we will only have 2 workshops so I decided to JUMP in.

Lesson 1 Lines and Dancing Lines

These are all just experiments!!!! I am really mainly posting for myself to see my own development in this course.

Did a test sheet of various lines with pencils,markers, pens, charcoal, and crayons to see their marks.
Then we were to do exercises with what Jane calls the wandering line. Letting the line go where it wants, rather intuitively.  Then add another line to compliment or go along with the first, Jane calls this a dancing line.  I many but wasn't getting really what I wanted. Need much more practice
I have a large 11 x 14 " sketchbook with fairly good quality paper. 

click to enlarge

Black oil pastel and lt brown conte stick.  My observation is that it's much too busy. 

click to enlarge

This was done first with a watercolor graphite pencil and then the conte stick... photo came out too faint, but you can get the idea.  The stains are from a work on the next page. This page probably was wet when I closed the book. I like this one much better. 

click to enlarge

We were to make backgrounds with low contrast colors and do the dancing lines on them.

Background oil/wax crayons with some medium. The lines were charcoal stick and 2B graphite pencil.

 Jane works in acrylic paints. I mainly work in oils so I did experiments with my wax/oil crayons and watercolor crayons with medium and without. Not good on plain paper so did a few on heavy brown paper and pieces of cut canvas, 

click to enlarge

Top strip is watercolor crayons with water added on heavy brown paper.

Bottom strip  using my oil/wax neocolor I crayons by Caran D'Ache. with added medium of  linseed oil and turps. Like the watercolor crayons best. I have cut sheets and will do some more. 

The cut canvas trials did not work out too well. I hope to open my paints and do them again,