I always
start any painting with pastel, whether it be acrylic, gouache or
whatever. They are usually gestural if
they are to be whimsical as above or more realistic if representational.
Today, I
was planning to use mainly acrylics, so I did a wash of gesso and drew into the
wet gesso with pastels. I do that to
create a good surface and to create textures – use it fairly thick.
Then I
start to use the acrylics, decide what colours I am going to use. It is still gestural at this stage, I am
trying to get the picture to speak to me.
When I start I never have a clear idea what I am going to do. Then I start to add textures with crumpled
tissue (I find that the tissue from old dressmaking patterns is wonderful as it
doesn’t dissolve like new tissue paper.
I pick them up from op shops for 50cents). I use whatever comes to hand, nothing is safe
from my paint stained hand!
Today, I used the kitchen scrubbing brush to add
splodges. I would have had a photo, but
my camera decided it need new batteries and being totally disorganised my spare
ones need charging too.
So
this photo is what I did while they were recharging. The picture on the left I did with pastels,
sometimes the urge to carry on with pastel overtakes and then I just use some
water colour to finish off.
At this
stage the girl finally started to talk to me.
This is as
far as I got today. I don’t think she is
finished yet, her face needs some work.
When I
upload my pictures to the computer I use the computer to crop. Sometimes I rotate the crop to give an
interesting angle. And if I am going to add words I use the text tools as my
writing is crap, see the header above!
Even though
she needs more work she is talking to me and her name is Mel. She likes to look at you with those blue as
blue eyes and stares into your soul. You
always feel that you can’t hide from her.
She is a wise soul!
Face 15
This is Cindy;
she looks at the world with wide eyed wonder.
She is very trusting and believes everything she is told. In this picture she has just been told about
the big bad wolf in the woods!! After doing the pastel I used splodges from the
tissue ball with acrylic and stencilled with toile. (I will show some of my handmade stencils next
week). She is not finished yet.
Mix it Monthly – Trees
Earlier in the week I decided
to get out my Sennelier Inks, they are a shellac based ink and create wonderful
transparencies and have a gunky feel! I
brought them about 3 years ago and only used them once! Which is silly as they give a wonderful rich
feel to your work.
This has an
abstract feel because I got carried away with creating textures. I started out as a painting of a bush area at
a nearby nature reserve.
This is a
painting of a Silver Fern the national symbol of NZ. It is a tree Fern and in certain light the
underneath of the leaves seems to be silver.
I just love them. Sorry Connie I
just cannot get my head around the colour scheme this month. But I am working
on it!
Art Journal Journey – Living beings
I am
cheating here a bit as this colour pencil work I did some years ago, I don’t think
I have shown it before.
I once had
a tin with a pussy lying on some William Morris material. One day I decided to try my hand at doing a similar
drawing.
There was a reason. When Zana, one of my cats had kittens I kept
two of them, Jasper and Lucy. However, I
found having 4 cats too much. So I
decided to find another home for him when he was about 4 months with another
family a few streets away. He settled in well. But at about 6 months he
kept on coming back every week day at 10 am on the dot and going at 4 pm, obviously
his new owners were out at work and he remembered where there was a nice
bed.
Eventually
it stopped. Except for a period of two
weeks when he came for the day for 2 weeks. During these two weeks I did this picture
that was 6 years ago. Well imagine my
surprise on Tuesday, there was a meow that was not from my three, I went to the
back and there sat Jasper. He walked in
bold as brass, went up to Bro and rubbed his face against his, he went up to
Zana, she hissed! Lucy just sat there with eyes wide as saucers. Then he hopped up on the sofa and had a sleep
for 2 hours and disappeared. I phoned
his owners and they were amazed as I!
Wonder when I will see him again?
In another six years? I wonder if
he has been around here at night as I have a cat flap.
Well that’s
it for today Have a great week, I will
probably have some for gals for 29 faces on Sunday or Monday.
I am also linking up with
