Painting Big

I signed up for an online workshop with Alisa Burke, "Larger than Life", about painting large.  It is not a live class, but includes a lot of videos. I found it interesting and motivating.  Some of it isn't really my style. She uses words and phrases in some of her layers, which is something I typically don't do (on purpose).

I did start two paintings this weekend. There is still a lot of painting and layers that needs to be done, but I thought it was a good start. I do have an idea for a different kind of painting. I will probably work on it, while I am adding more to these.

I do highly recommend Alisa's class. It has lots of info and videos, and it is good motivation to jump in and get painting. I felt like I definitely got my money's worth, and I can go back and review the lessons and watch the videos any time.

These are about 2 'x 3', which is big for me, but I want to go bigger. It only took me about an hour to do both of these.   I really should have ironed these before I painted them. One is canvas, the other is a somewhat heavy muslin, both had been washed because I was originally going to dye them, so they were somewhat wrinkly.

I hope to find time to work on these this week. Last week was a bit of a battle, my hours have been increased at work, and I had a cold, so I lost all motivation. But I'm raring to go this week!

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer Painted and Printed Papers class

I had a great time yesterday at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Painted and Printed Papers class in Masonville, CO.  The workshop was organized by the Masonville Artists' Studio and Always Be Creating (link).

Like Julie's apron says, we got dirty (and paint covered and had a fabulous day).

 We played with creating our own stencils. Hand:

Eye:

And creating color and layers.

 I love poppies. Here is a shot of the giant ones in my front yard that are just now blooming.  When we started gelli printing, I was drawn to Julie's poppies stencils.

So I used them, a lot.

 

 Then I did quite a few flowers.

I did do a ton more, but these are the most finished of the bunch.

While driving home, there was a great view of the mountains, and since I will be moving to Nebraska soon, I thought I'd stop and take a picture.  I turned of the highway and went a ways down a dirt road to get through an area with houses.  At the end of the road, there was a bunch of rusted farm equipment, which I thought added to the picture. Bye Mountains,  I have about three weeks, then I won't be seeing you are a while.

Painted art quilts

I have a bunch of ice dyed fabrics, but was kind of stumped what to do with them.  I thought I'd make some quilts (roughly 16"x 20") and brayer paint on them.  Could be a tragedy, or could be cool, right?

Here is my first one, I really hate this Jade Green color. I do not free motion quilt very often, and I can tell how rusty I am, on these jaggedy looking swirls.  I drew one line of the swirls before I started quilting (not that it helped), but I didn't have much of a plan other than that.

I did measure these circles vertically so they would go from big to small (I drew lines with spacing at about 1 3/4" at one end and 1" at the other), but did not draw the circles ahead of time, or the horizontal spacing.

Here is my work station. I just brayered the paint on. I did not clean the brayer between colors. This took a lot of paint. The amount shown in this picture is laughable, it would probably only cover 2" x 2".

It looks pretty cool.

Here are the swirls. I really like it and think my swirls look better painted, for some reason. When I started, I thought I'd make them white with a hint of color, but I really liked the mix of colors. I may add more paint, and/or hand stitching.

Here are the circles. I do like the mix of colors, but find the pattern kind of boring.  I am thinking of making a much smaller art quilt and mounting it in the middle, leaving about a  4" border all around.

I really like the look of these, but I am somewhat sad that more of the ice dyeing isn't visible. I thought more of it would show adjacent to the stitched lines.

I already have two more quilts made, but think I will try another technique with them, maybe break out the Shiva paint sticks for those.

What do you think?  Do you think the swirly one needs a bit more work?

Patchwork fabric backgrounds

The other day I posted my Coral art quilt but did not have pictures of the background patchwork before I attached the "coral".

I had made quite a few background pieces, while I had all these turquoise blue fabrics out, so I thought I'd show these before I added more to them.  All of these will either be cut to 16" x 20" and mounted to canvas, or will be wrapped around (a smaller) canvas. The fabrics were attached to a heavyweight muslin with a straight stitch around the edges.

I really like the coral print on this one and plan to do some hand stitching around it. 

This one is going to have a felted wool tree trunk and branches appliqued onto it.

I plan to add goldfish on this one, so it looks like a pond. The color looked a little blah since it was so solid, and the fish will be roughly the same value. I decided to add some paint to make it darker around the edges.

I used Setacolor transparent paints in sky blue and ultramarine, leaving the center area the original color. The two tan pieces are upholstery fabric and must have some kind of Scotchgard on them, as they resisted the paint.  I don't think it looks bad, but if it bothers me later, I will add some thicker opaque paint on top.

I really like the painted piece and am thinking of painting the background for the tree piece as well.

Painterly painting class

I decided to take a two day Painterly painting class at the Art Students League of Denver.  Students could use oil or acrylic, but I was the only one using acrylics.

It's been a long time since I've done any representational/figurative painting, but when I did it in the past I had a very tight style and wanted to loosen up.

I didn't create any finished pieces but started a few.  I did get some practice and the teacher Ken Valastro helped a lot with direction on improving my composition.  His demo was amazing, he created this lovely rainy NYC street scene with lots of people, just with broad strokes and color changes.  The people had no real features, but you could sense where they were looking and if they were interacting with the person next to them.

Here is the first piece I started.  There are a lot of things I would do differently if I were to do it again, but it's not a bad first effort.

I did a second one, and the only reason it looked semi-decent is Ken did some painting on it.  I am not posting it here since all the good parts were his.

Here is my last one. I think it's a good start and will continue working on it.  My people are turning out pretty well.  I still feel like I paint very tight and need to loosen up. I am thinking about doing practice paintings with loose brush stokes as a warm up exercise when I go to my studio. That way, I will be painting more often and experimenting with painting loose.

I don't think these are a bad start considering it's probably been over 8 years since I've done a representational painting.

Painted and stamped canvas

I have a specific idea for a piece of art that includes painted canvas, part of a recycled felted wool sweater, and embroidery.

Since I was painting a piece of canvas, why not paint two?  The one on the left was gessoed, the one on the right is without gesso.  I took a class two years ago where we painted on unprimed canvas and I liked it, so I thought I'd try it again.

Here is the gessoed canvas, below. I am using a color palette that is not one I typically use. The base colors are Quin magenta with white, Cadmium yellow?, Martha Stewart Orange with some yellow mixed in, Process Magenta mixed with Quin red. I just painted sections different colors until the canvas was completely covered. I then took turquoise paint and stamped a bubble-wrap looking stamp, then stamped turquoise swirls.  I used a kitchen wire whisk and stamped it with black paint.  I then used Tulip dimensional paints to squirt swirls and lines using black, deep turquoise, and red.  Most of this will be covered by the felted wool layer I will be adding on top, so it's okay that it's a bit messy.

This is the unprimed (no gesso) canvas, below. I did enjoy painting on the unprimed canvas as the paint acts more like watercolor. The paints blend into each other more, as long as they are still damp.  I used the same stamps and paints as before. Since I don't have a "game plan" of what I am going to use this for, I was a bit more restrained.

Here is a detail shot.

I hope to have the first piece done by the end of the week, but there is a lot of hand embroidery to be done so we will see.

Carnival collage/assemblage

I finished my Carnival assemblage/collage. I submitted it to a show yesterday and just took a quick picture before putting it into my car.  I had to crop the picture since the background behind it was a mess, but there are pieces that stick out past the edge of the canvas. This picture doesn't really do it justice. I will take a better picture when it's hanging in the show, or at home if it doesn't get in.

This piece is 24" x 24", excluding the parts that stick out.

The theme for the show is "Square" so I thought I would submit some other pieces as well.  Here is the bird assemblage completed, that I had shown a progress photo the other day.  This piece is 12" x 12". This piece is the second in a series, the first one is here.

This is a piece from last year. My husband and I had taken a field painting class.  I really enjoyed the fabric layers and then painting over them. I plan to do some work similar to this in the next few months. I think this piece is 18" x 18".  The work was originally on raw canvas, but I glued the finished piece to a painted canvas using gel medium.

I will post if any of these get in the show.

Next up, I need to finish some handmade gifts for my family for Thanksmas (Christmas celebrated during the Thanksgiving holiday).

Visit to Simone and Sabyl's studio

Sometimes I go to Susan and Sabyl's studio to visit and work on projects together. It's nice to get out of the house and spend some time with good friends. And it's nice when some of your good friends are artists too.

This is the piece Sabyl is working on.

This is Simone's work in progress.

This is my piece. I think it looks better in person.  Taking a picture and looking at it really can give you a fresh look at it. I can now see that I need to improve the transition at the top left from the darker blue to the lighter music sheet. Also, I think the whole piece needs another wash of blue.  

Oct meeting of CO Mixed Media, Square

For the October meeting, we decided to work on square pieces. There are quite a few Calls for Entry locally for square work, some specifically 12" x 12" and one that can be any size square.

Simone, Sabyl, Enid, Gayla, Liz, and I had a great time. I was so wrapped up in working that I didn't get my camera out until after Enid and Gayla had left.  Enid is starting a piece using some old family photos, I hope she brings it to the next group meeting so we can see how it is coming along. Gayla is working on a felted piece and wants to include some 3D elements. She finished laying it out at the meeting, so I hope I see it after it is felted.

Simone did a fabulous piece with a 50's era feel. It's pretty awesome.

 Sabyl is working with abstract shapes. I love the turquoise and pink!

This is one Sabyl just started.

Liz also used abstract shapes. As you can see, even though Liz and Sabyl are both using an abstract "vocabulary", their pieces, styles, and color palettes are much different.

I had a piece I had started previously with some collage, including masking tape and dripped paint, all in white. I wanted to work in a bright color palette, which is not something I usually do. After painting the background, I added some dots and dashes that I wanted to look like a flower field, but I don't think it's there yet. I am thinking of adding large flowers in the foreground, but I don't feel in a flowery mood today, so may just put more layers and colors and see what happens.

I played with some other things, but they aren't far enough along for pictures yet.

New abstract painting

I am pretty thoughtful when creating art, especially my assemblage pieces. I often know what I want the final piece to look like before I start. If I am thinking about changing something, I like to ponder it for a bit before implementing it.  It makes for slow art making. Maybe that is why I like experimenting with dyes and fabric painting where I don't have an agenda. I just enjoy the process and ask myself "what if" often.

I am trying to set aside more time just to have pieces for play. Originally this piece was going to be the background for a bird/pulley/hand piece similar to this one, but with a textured blue background. I wanted to try a technique by Tracey Russell; she did a demo the Art Students League Denver a few weeks ago and it was very interesting. She layered paint, pieces of painted rice paper, and mark making in her piece.

I layered different blue painted rice papers and tissue papers in the piece and it really didn't look very good, so scumbled white gesso on top. I drew circles with black india ink and let them run down . I then added red marks in the center of the circles, then added the yellow section in the middle with finger painting.  I didn't like the black circles so covered them and most of the canvas with a dark Prussian blue. I used a wet paper towel to pull up some the paint. The red marks were kind of faint as they were originally done in a transparent paint. I made them stronger by re-painting them with an opaque red.  It's very abstract, I guess it could be a landscape. I liked it enough to call it done!  This piece is 12" x 12" on a wood panel.

Paper Collage with CO Mixed Media Club

For this month's meeting, our group did painting/collage similar to Elizabeth St.Hilaire Nelson. Her website is here. 

First, we did a basic painting so we had a guide for where to put the colored papers.

Here is Sabyl's example she had made earlier in the week.  She did not completely cover the background painting with collaged papers, but let the painting show through.

Here is Sabyl's work in progress on her new piece. She is collaging over more of the painting on this one.

This is Simone's. I love the sewing pattern showing through on the lower right corner.

 Gayla's is bright and cheerful.

Sue Clarke's little birdie is the cutest.

Enid has a fun hedgehog.

Trish has her underpainting done. So happy!

I am working on a sunset and it looks horrible right now but I have high hopes. I collaged the lower landscape and top sky with citrasolv papers, but still have most of the sky to complete.

This was a piece I had colllaged with rice paper previously and it looked pretty bad. I have done an underpainting of trees reflected in a lake, but haven't started the paper collage yet.

We agreed to bring these back to our next meeting, so I will post update photos then!