Lesson 6 - Atmosphere and veiling - first attempts

Lesson 5 line and collage

Bloodlines

Lesson 5 - Line compositions

Lines drawn (in order) with Signo white overwritten with Sakura white gelli pen, Sharpie fine black, red India ink dropper, Derwent charcoal pencil, Copic teal blue brush end, and Pitt medium black. Had some trouble with the pens working on the matte medium. The Signo white was sketchy and had to be overwritten with the Sakura gelli pen, the Sharpie did not want to write, the India ink worked great, the charcoal was fine, the Copic worked very well, and the Pitt black was used to overwrite a gray Sharpie line that did not show up well enough. 

Because of some trouble I had with the markers, some of my lines do not seem spontaneous, but I like the white line on the first one, the "blood" line on the third, and the last piece with the Pitt pen best.

Since posting these, I smudged the charcoal line in the 4th piece and I think it's become my favorite!

The neutral backgrounds did not photograph true, but the colors consisted of neutral gray, Naples yellow hue, and unbleached titanium white. They are nicer than they look here.

I loved working on these quick little studies and really want to do more, but time is at a premium. I will be out of town all next week and will not be able to post. I will try to get to part 2 of this lesson before leaving!

Green and blue quick studies - pattern

Jane suggested doing some studies to see how different patterns work together. The green series was what I did this morning. The stamps used were handmade line stamp, 2 different-size box lids, a couple of handmade circle and square stamps, top of Distress paint dabber, and pencil eraser. Against a background of Golden's green/gold, cobalt blue, sometimes mixed with titanium white. Other colors for stamping included pthalo blue, paint dabbers in Distress sapphire and mustard seed, and Basic's crimson red.

The following is the blue series, done this afternoon. Painted with light ultramarine blue and cobalt blue backgrounds.  Stamping with white, cobalt blue, green gold and green gold mixed w/white. Introduced the corrugated card and triangle handmade stamps.

Not sure what I think of them, but both studies were very relaxing and fun to do. They were small, at 5 x 5, so less opportunity to get lost in too much confusing detail.

Lesson 4 - Patterns 2

Fun making the patterns, but relating them into composition is a challenge. I'l be playing with this some more. Maybe more variety in background and palette will help. These were large compositions at 10 x 11--lots of space to try and fill!!

Lesson 4 - patterns

Playing around with some stamping materials. Yellow and bold and colorful!

Hipstamatic Luke

Luke

Lesson 3 Cruciform

Repainted and reworked this to the extent that the collage papers were beginning to disintegrate! It was beginning to feel messy, so I stopped. I wanted to create depth in the piece by adding shadow around the cruciform, but I was challenged to find the right color and also make a subtle transition from the shading to the lighter background color. The 4 quadrant background colors all turned out to be about the same, so an attempt at variety was established through the texturing.

Jane said to keep working this one, so here it is. Had a hard time making the quadrants different colors. The added red paint and collage really did nothing to improve the composition. It's a bloody mess. Don't like it at all, so I'm abandoning it for good now!

This next one was also worked over and over. Probably too busy with the textures, and the cruciform is perhaps too static. But...

I rather like the one below and the blue one at the top!

More Lesson 2 horizon focus

This assignment has been very challenging to say the least! I love playing with the paint and the collage pieces, but getting the color down and then covering the collage is tricky. I am now trying to rework this piece to add more activity to the collage and then adding to the foreground in such a way that won't detract from the horizon. 

version 2

version 1

To me, this one looks like a city neighborhood. It is a busier collage than all my others, and I like the "signage" at right. Didn't like the brown foreground, but the texture is nice. I may try to brush some of the sky color over it to catch on some of the texture.

More horizons

The more I work on this project, the more frustrating it gets! Jane's feedback for the earlier posts (the first 3 for Lesson 2) said I should try for more contrast between the sky and foreground colors. I find this very difficult to do, especially on the larger pieces, because of needing to go back and forth between the 2 colors and dealing with a dry palette, having to recreate the color, and then it goes on with difficulty because the paint underneath isn't completely dry nor is it fluid enough to take the new coat of paint. I need to let the piece totally dry in between, which, of course, makes it impossible to wipe off paint to achieve the desired contract in the right places. So it's a balancing act for which I am unbalanced! 

The piece directly below (5 x 6) does not have the contrasting sky and foreground, but I like the softness of it, and I like the horizon even though the top pieces are even. 

The yellow piece was a nightmare because of the paint problems described above. It is a larger piece at 7.5 x 9.5, and there is more contrast in real life--the sky is blue-green and the foreground is grayish-yellow. The entire piece is "enhanced" with quinacridone nickel azo gold, there were no pre-background text layers, and I added the music scraps afterwards for more interest.

The last piece (also 5 x 6) was another difficult one because of the paint problems. I had mixed phthalo blue, burnt umber, and raw sienna with a tad of white for the bottom, and I used a "sea glass" craft paint mixed also with a tad of white for the top. The painting of the collage was difficult because of the open spaces and the transition of the sky and ground colors between the open gaps. The paint kept drying up regardless of adding glaze medium and then the brush would stick when I tried reapplying to a less-than-dry, less-than-wet base. Really frustrating. I finally then added a little interest with a dry brush of my phthalo blue mixture, a few more strips of collage, and then I called it a day.

Lesson 2 continued

Lesson 2

These were fun small (5 x 6) experimental pieces on the "horizon" focal-point compositions done during work breaks. :)

Jane's Dynamic Composition, Lesson 1

All the challenges in this assignment! 

My first attempt was the green/yellow-green color palette. Trying to stick to the palette was difficult and I wasted a lot of paint! My next challenge involved the infinite possibilities of positioning various sizes of squares and rectangles, and then making a mess with the matte medium. I also added stash scrap that violated the rule of "no diagonals" before I realized I had done so. This was not my favorite piece.

The yellow palette was more fun. I enjoyed creating the color swatches and found it easier to stay within the parameters. The background seems to blend nicely with the swatch colors.


The purple/red composition was fun to create but difficult to photograph. I used some white paint in the background that really shows in the photos. The palette is mostly purple and red, but the photo makes it look more contrasty than it really is. I think all of my pieces are busier than I like.


I really enjoyed having parameters within which to work, and at the same time, so much freedom. This has been fun.


On to lesson 1, project 2! 

I dislike the inconsistent color application made by the brush strokes.

Fall leaves

Bottles

Taken with Hipstamatic on iPad3