Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Papier Mâché
Wadded up newspaper held together with masking tape, strengthened and sculpted with layers of torn strips of newspaper and white wheat paste.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Crazy for Dragonflies
What is up with that horizontal line across the painting?
The painting it is 22"X30" (full sheet) watercolor.
I wonder why those dragonflies point their tails toward the sky?
So begins another boring story:
I wanted badly to place that dragonfly in the Pond painting and Steve Memering told me, "No Way." And since I paid him $350 for a weekend of instruction, I took his advice. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, check 2008 posts, "Step-By-Step painting of 'Pond'."
As I have been studying those marvelous winged gems hovering over the koi pond for the past 6 years, since Sven built it, I was determined to begin a series of just dragonfly paintings.
I have been wanting to work on this technique of covering the whole painting with calligraphic brush strokes with a flat brush, as I have been saying, ever since I began taking the calligraphy classes from Carol Pallesen in Reno about 25 years ago, I love to play with wide pens and flat brushes with colored ink or watercolor. This will be the 5th painting I have done with this Technique. I thought it might get me noticed amongst the thousands of entries they will receive. Besides, it is fun.
This is the second painting I started as the third entry for Splash 11 art competition. Just thought I would add pressure by beginning this at the 11th hour.
The deadline to get the entry postmarked was 1/16/09. I was at the post office at closing time begging the postal worker to postmark the package for me, even though it was not ready to go. He said he couldn't do that. I painted right up til the last minute and then didn't have enough time to put the images on a disc. I am entering 3 paintings, with an entry fee of $20 each. Mr. Postman gave me 25 minutes to go home and do the computer part. I barely got there in time. He had instructed me to knock on an inside door when I returned and he was there waiting for me. Nice guy. I tried to give him a tip but he said he couldn't take it.
I woke up around midnight and began thinking about the print out of the painting, that had to be enclosed with the entry form. There was a pale line through the painting. I thought there was something wrong with the printer at the time but I had not a spare second to redo it. I went to the computer to check my photos in the middle of the night and there was that line above the water lily running horizontally across the photo. I turned on a light and looked closely at the actual watercolor painting. Holy Crap! Nuh-uh, are you kidding me? After all that hard work? There seems to be a flaw that caused that area to soak up the pigment more than the rest of the paper.
Amazing that I did not notice the horizontal line developing in the painting as I was working. I have never had a problem with Arches watercolor paper before. Lucky for me, it happened in a place that can be cropped. The problem brought about the need to crop and the cropping makes a better painting, this is what painters refer to as a "Happy mistake." The only mistake was using a piece of paper that was unnoticeably flawed.
I am still wide open for critique. I think the painting needs fine tuning. You can give me comments here in this blog. Please do. I am looking forward to them.
The painting it is 22"X30" (full sheet) watercolor.I wonder why those dragonflies point their tails toward the sky?
So begins another boring story:
I wanted badly to place that dragonfly in the Pond painting and Steve Memering told me, "No Way." And since I paid him $350 for a weekend of instruction, I took his advice. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, check 2008 posts, "Step-By-Step painting of 'Pond'."
As I have been studying those marvelous winged gems hovering over the koi pond for the past 6 years, since Sven built it, I was determined to begin a series of just dragonfly paintings.
I have been wanting to work on this technique of covering the whole painting with calligraphic brush strokes with a flat brush, as I have been saying, ever since I began taking the calligraphy classes from Carol Pallesen in Reno about 25 years ago, I love to play with wide pens and flat brushes with colored ink or watercolor. This will be the 5th painting I have done with this Technique. I thought it might get me noticed amongst the thousands of entries they will receive. Besides, it is fun.
This is the second painting I started as the third entry for Splash 11 art competition. Just thought I would add pressure by beginning this at the 11th hour.
The deadline to get the entry postmarked was 1/16/09. I was at the post office at closing time begging the postal worker to postmark the package for me, even though it was not ready to go. He said he couldn't do that. I painted right up til the last minute and then didn't have enough time to put the images on a disc. I am entering 3 paintings, with an entry fee of $20 each. Mr. Postman gave me 25 minutes to go home and do the computer part. I barely got there in time. He had instructed me to knock on an inside door when I returned and he was there waiting for me. Nice guy. I tried to give him a tip but he said he couldn't take it.
I woke up around midnight and began thinking about the print out of the painting, that had to be enclosed with the entry form. There was a pale line through the painting. I thought there was something wrong with the printer at the time but I had not a spare second to redo it. I went to the computer to check my photos in the middle of the night and there was that line above the water lily running horizontally across the photo. I turned on a light and looked closely at the actual watercolor painting. Holy Crap! Nuh-uh, are you kidding me? After all that hard work? There seems to be a flaw that caused that area to soak up the pigment more than the rest of the paper.
Amazing that I did not notice the horizontal line developing in the painting as I was working. I have never had a problem with Arches watercolor paper before. Lucky for me, it happened in a place that can be cropped. The problem brought about the need to crop and the cropping makes a better painting, this is what painters refer to as a "Happy mistake." The only mistake was using a piece of paper that was unnoticeably flawed.
I am still wide open for critique. I think the painting needs fine tuning. You can give me comments here in this blog. Please do. I am looking forward to them.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Another 50-50-50 art show at 20th Street Gallery
The Gift, an original story by Debbie Keller Muldavin
Local author with 50+ children books to her credit
in collaboration with 20th Street Gallery
have invited 50 artists to illustrate 1 sentence per artist.
50 sentences - 50 artists - 50 paintings = one book.
November 5th - December 29
The book will be for sale only at 20th Street Gallery
My sentence is:
I laid my jump rope on the grass between two trees and pretended the green was a glacial crevasse.
All the paintings are 10"X10"
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