Evolution of a Painting

Painting using prompts often brings interesting outcomes. Never the same even when using the same recipe. Different colors, different substrates all come into the equation. I often use the leftover paints on a new substrate choosing different prompts as they come into my head. That is how this painting started. Edited in oil pastels using some tips from Pauline Agnew and here. I have ordered my first set on Senelier Pastels! YAY!

A New Day

Final?

Acrylics and Oil Pastels on cardboard

Original "Underpants"

Leftover paints and mixed prompts! Acrylics, large charcoal blocks, watercolor pencils (ink intense) oil pastels. 20 x 20 " 

Flipped 180 °

Started using oil pastels

Just lazy to start with wet paints

More editing

I decided to bring this into PS and use some filters in Topaz Studio2. Topaz studio also comes in a free-standing software so you don't need PS. There is a free trial. They have great filters called  "add a look" I chose a grunge look. 

Grunge Look

PS painted on a new layer

Used as an idea

Summer Sadna the Best

Incredible! These past two months of extended workshop classes were just that, incredible! I learned more in these months than in the 10 months of our regular workshop classes. Conclusion, we need more directional instruction.

July was Oils, for me back to the basics, for others an introduction.  August, mixed media month, using unconventional materials, collage, and assemblage, was a mind opener, even for me as I use collage and various mediums a lot.

I loved the mid time critiques that sometimes overflowed to the end of class! 

Critique Line-Up

This week we were to work in collage. But, before we start we were to write down our intentions or concept. 

 Collage

Homework - write a short text on a free subject that interests you (identity, family, nature, or something more specific like a portrait, car, etc.) that has an idea of duality or more, Then write why it will be the exact subject and right for you to create it in collage

The purpose of writing - to refine and clarify the thought

Remember thoughts are words

When I think of collage I generally think in abstract terms, usually color, shapes, and forms, lines, and textures. Sometimes I start with painting shapes and colors and then adding collage pieces and sometimes I start with pasting collage pieces and then painting. I don't generally start with a specific concept, but had this thought of Jail as maybe a starting idea.
What is a jail?
Physically and mentally? Do we make our own jails?  Can we break out of them?
What color is jail? Black, no light no hope desperate? A feeling of great loneliness!
I often find myself in this place.

"Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation. Loneliness typically includes anxious feelings about a lack of connection or communication with other beings, both in the present and extending into the future. As such, loneliness can be felt even when surrounded by other people."

Word associations:
Out of control, prison, jail, confinement, gaol, penitentiary, lockup, dungeon, solitary confinement,
imprison, incarcerate,  put away, immure, prohibit, ban, forbid, arrest, bar, mental block

WIP

19.75 x 13.75 "

Gessoed paper with Sienna layer

For this, I have to put on my "Dotty" hat

The next group I made starts in acrylic paint on watercolor paper to start my collage

Behind the Veil

13.75 x 13.75 "

Acrylic Collage Wax Crayons

Am I Dreaming

13.75 x 13.75 "

Acrylic Collage Wax Crayons

Next week our last session and Brachot* for the New Year! Continuing with our concepts using everything under the sun, mixing mediums like acrylic and oils, paints and crayons or pencil. Anything goes. Best to start to work at home.  I will be continuing with the starts I made


*  Bracha is a blessing or benediction recited at specific times during services and rituals. ... A Bracha can also be said when someone experiences something that makes them feel like uttering a blessing, such as seeing a beautiful mountain range or celebrating the birth of a child.

Love You Love You Naught

Love who you are - and who you are not. (Anonymous)

What a mess... a real mishmash!! Started back about a month ago. Was attracted by some images of daisies from a magazine and started playing around on an odd piece of brown paper. I think I started with the collage pieces and started putting on random marks in pencil and oil sticks. Not really knowing what was going to come out. No rest for the poor eye here.

Daisies Start WIP

35 x 39 cm

Brown Paper

Mixed Media

Trying to quiet down some too busy areas using my new oil sticks. Still a little too much. Decided in any case to keep to the flower motif

Daisies 2 

35 x 39 cm

Brown Paper

Mixed Media

Daisies 3

35 x 39 cm

Brown Paper

Mixed Media

Still needing something... seems a bit pareve   back for some tweaks

Doodle Colored I

Every morning is a new garden. (Leza MacDonald)

Old entry. 

Isn't it wonderful when you discover a new flower in your garden! My garden isn't really specially cared for.  We dried our lawn when the water prices got too high. Its mainly wild grass, lavender, perennials, and in this season lots of wild poppies.

Today

I started this blog maybe a week ago. Wow how life manages to change so fast. You get into a routine and everything falls into place that is till you get the jolt. That's what happened to me last evening when I received a surprise call from brother-in -law Tommy.  My baby sister had suddenly passed. She hadn't felt well and didn't sleep well so decided to take a morning nap, and quietly slipped away. They say a sudden heart attack. Right now as I am writing this I feel as if I am "robot" mode, trying hard to digest it all. Debbie was our miracle baby, born 68 years ago at the weight of 1lb 6oz!!! No more short sweets posts, just a hole in my heart, These flowers are for you Debbie!!!

36 x 25

Crayons  Oil Pastels over Doodle I

Brown Paper

Out of the Box

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. (Barbara Bush)

Each year Heleni prepares a special project that we work on at home and bring in for a general critique.  This year was a bit different. We were to prepare a presentation verbally and visually about a subject, concept, or idea, not necessarily about art. We all drew lots and each week, we take a break from our work for the presentation. On the 18th of April, my turn came.  

Instead of giving a talk about getting out of the box I decided that it would be better to have them do it as part of an exercise.  I brought paper, crayons, colored markers, charcoal etc. So I told them to start a drawing and timed it to 5 minutes. Then instructed them to tear the paper in two sections. Place one section face down and continue on half that was shown for 2 minutes. Then do the the same for the second half. Then I asked them to cut the halves in half and gave another 2 minutes on each quarter. 

Neomi and I made a collage of the work on a cardboard format. 

100 x 70 cm

We mixed them all up for this collage,here is an Album link where you can see the work as well as some general images. All had a grand time and I hope that somehow I helped them look at their art with a new perspective.

My Visual Display

10 x 20 x 6 cm

I got out of the box by making small statues in small boxes. Haven't done this type of work since my college days!

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 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 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

Snake Plant Collage

I really enjoyed doing the collage for workshop project. I love collages but never really thought of it as a media that I could connect to. During the challenge I met a great collage artist Hannah Klaus Hunter and was so inspired by her work I felt I had to give it a try. I don't have collections of fabrics, papers and other stuff, just plain newspint,so off I go. I  thought that the snake plant would be a good subject because of its simple shapes.This was done directly on the grey cardboard. I taped all the edges because the cardboard tends to fray. Background oils , leaves and planter newsprint  with caran d'ache crayon and some oil pastel drawings.

Snake Plant Collage

37 x 37 cm

Newsprint with crayons and oils

Here are some of the stages of this painting.

Rough Graphite Sketch

Chico likes my painting

or maybe just

the chair

Painted background with 

leaves pasted

Rock Face Abstract

I am missing the dynamics of the January 30 x 30. Not jut the painting but also all the work in the background. Photography and post editing, posting the blog and linking up. Anyone else feeling this vacuum?

This has been on the burner for quite awhile, mainly for 2 reasons. The first Heleni thought that it worked in its current stage, and two I was busy with the January 30 x 30 challenge to really tackle it. I felt it was just the beginning and needed more definition.

I finally decided to use a dry media on this work. Oil pastels with medium and without in order to retain the free and spontaneous feel but with not too much overwork. I was pleased with the result and Heleni was as well!

Second Stage

Thinned oils  and Oil Pastel

on gessoed cardboard

35 x 35 Cm

Stage I

Thinned oils on gessoed cardboard

35 x 35 Cm

Day 24 30 in 30 Challenge

Leslie's  30 in 30 Challenge

18  x 13 cm 

Oil Pastels on covered cardboard

A small sketch of the fields we pass going home from our favorite spa.... Fields of poppies and some yellow flowers that I don't know.... Used oil pastels and some medium on a small format.  Actually did 2 but the second wouldn't scan or photograph well.... took a day off from wet painting!!!!

18  x 13 cm 

Oil Pastels on covered cardboard

Here is the second sketch... problem was that I was comparing the photo with the original under different lighting.... It is dark already and I am viewing the original under florescent lighting... photo was taken in daylight... so I am seeing more purples...now in the original!!!!. 

Experimental Stuff WIP

A while back Heleni suggested a challenge working with a partner and adopting something about their work and using it in our own creation.  My creation was supposed to be from the wonderful backgrounds Traudi does which I hadn't really captured.

So I decided to get help and brought 2 cloth covered panels plus gouache paints, the kind that children use, to class and Traudi showed me how to achieve the various patterns... She takes a sheet of paper ,I had plain brown paper, and she squishes out the colors, usually 2 hues, and randomly prints with these colors on the canvas....

I am doing "my " thing with them... and am also using the sheets of paper as well... these are WIP...there is a lot to explore in these methods... making use of the shapes for you imagination....

 40 x 60 cm

 40 x 60 cm

Traudi uses markers and cut torn colored paper for her creations....I am using drawing tools like charcoal and oil pastels....

Here is  the work Traudi did on the challenge... she adopted my use of children in some of my paintings. 

Fushia flower from WDE on Wet canvas

Seems its been a long and hot summer.... workshop vacation for two months.... hard to get motivated... no excuses ... with the  beginning of  September and maybe some relief from the heat I am trying to get back into the swing,,, and develop a little more creative discipline... Recently I bought a workshop #24 on pre-mixing grays by Richard Robinson. I love working with grays but my first attempt was really not a success... got too carried away and it was just too muddy and fragmented.... I did do  a wde challenge  hosted by Connie done also using grays.... done on 400 gram cartridge paper ,next time I will coat the paper with either gesso or acrylic paint.... it also was quite dull so did a bit of  oil pastels and blended it with some medium. Size 19 x 19 cm 

Did a tight crop to the Fushia Flower  

 First try  Click to enlarge

 With added oil pastel 

Click to enlarge

Doing another landscape from the references that I got with the workshop.... next post... still disappointed  but not giving in!!!

# 41 42 43 44 WDE Sept 28 mlou_jhu

These small sketches were done for WDE of Sept 28th  hosted by mlou_jhu.

 22 x 22 cm on 240 grm bristol paper using oil pastels--- fingers--scraping etc...

Click to enlarge the images

Pink Golds 

Lake Tufa

Lupin

  Yosemite