Threadbare - a process post

This will be my first process post - providing I can get the blog to cooperate when I post the images, and that's a big IF. Well, I'm sure it has more to do with my abilities than the workings of the blog template LOL.

I have been challenging myself in recent days to just start a piece and let it dictate where it goes until the voice inside finally says 'it's done'. The only idea I have in the beginning is usually the colour palette I start out with. Over the past couple of weeks that has been complimentary colours - predominantly red with accents of green/blue etc. The piece here was to use an analagous scheme of blues, greens and greys. (My apologies for the poor lighting and the neon green painter's tape - it was what I had on hand.)

So I began with some scribbling of several shades of blue and green watercolour crayons and then added a scribble of charcoal to connect these areas. It was at this point that potential names for the piece came to me - you can see it there in the upper right hand on the tape - threadbare I or tapestry I. 

When I added water and pushed the colour around the page it faded much more than I expected it to. Up until now I had been using my Inktense blocks and this was my first run with watercolour crayons, so while it surprised me I was not unhappy with it and I learned something, always a bonus!

The next day, I decided to do something bold and declarative to see where my muse would take me. I drew in the bold black square with my extra wide Sharpie marker. Well, that was certainly an in your face bit of mark making LOL. I left a sliver of open space underneath which comes into play in the next stage. The square was coloured with cobalt green crayon and then wet and brushed into place. At this point some spattering of that same colour happened intentionally.

By this point, the green tape was a distraction and I was pretty sure I was done with my outside edges so I removed it. The piece needed something else to give it life so in comes pyrrole red to play with the teal. It joined the spattering crowd as well as the blob and the sliver under the square. My brain just laughs at all the technical jargon here. 

I was done for the day, but not sure the piece was done so I did what has always worked well for me and walked away. I just love how refreshing and helpful that approach is to really clarify what is missing. When I looked at it first thing the next morning I knew the weight of the black marker lines was waaaaay too heavy, so that needed to be fixed. I painted over most of the square with gesso, thinning the border lines to about half their previous width, then added the cobalt green back in. Much happier!

Threadbare (C) Susan Langdon aka Nukiart
Mixed media on 12 x 16 watercolour paper

By this point I'd decided to name it Threadbare and that led me to the final decision to paint a line of stitching down the right hand edge of the big square. Seeing it here, it really needs the white border around it but my scanner isn't big enough to capture that

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If this post were a dvd it would have a blooper reel LOL. Because I had used charcoal to draw the initial, thread like lines, I needed to 'fix' it in place so I decided to cover the entire piece with matte medium. I knew it would give a bit of fuzziness to the charcoal itself and I liked that idea. What I hadn't counted on was it smearing the ink of my signature really badly, so bad. I didn't want to abandon the piece so after letting it dry thoroughly I brought out the gesso again, covered the old signature up and redid that section again with much better results this time around. Another lesson learned on my journey as an artist LOL. 

Learning From Others

I do like doing studies of other artists' work. I find an image that appeals to me and then try and dissect how they achieved it. Sometimes it works out and I'm pleased with the results and I file the technique away in my mental toolbox. Even when it doesn't work out, I usually learn something valuable along the way or maybe go off on a completely different tangent. It's similar to mixing colours for me - I see a hue I like and then try to see if I can replicate it using what I have. 

That's what prompted this little study. I had seen the image on p interest and was immediately drawn to the bold colours and clean lines. First thing I learned - drawing precision and perspective is key! It's really not noticeable to my eye here on screen but in my hand I can see the left side of the biggest house is not quite right.

Study of Cathy Horvath's Fall Lodge Folk Art

I decided to start out in my usual comfort zone of working small, my natural inclination, so this was drawn on 5 x 7 watercolour 140 lb paper. I don't have much experience with, nor confidence in, my ability to handle reflections so that was my first worry. I decided to include them in the initial drawing, that way I wouldn't get it all drawn and painted and then screw it up with horrible water lines LOL.

I then decided I much preferred the square format so I taped it off at 5 x 5 inches. The colour was added using water soluble markers - some full strength, some watered down before applying. Yes, if you look really closely you will see some small blooms where impatience got the best of me sigh.

I don't think I will try another one but if I did I might choose to work in acrylics.  

Hibernation is Over

It's not that it's been a horrible winter per se - it just feels that it went on forever! This is partly due to a 2 week period mid February where we had spring like temperatures, total absence of snow and the return of the robins. We couldn't be faulted for feeling like maybe, just maybe Spring was coming early.

Well, HAH! said Mother Nature. Fooled ya! And that she certainly did. We've had an ice storm of late and as recently as 4 days ago awoke to fresh snow on the ground. But I think, finally, that we can put Winter behind us. Fingers crossed! 

So, during my period of hibernation, literally nothing artistic happened. I had set this dark time aside in order to devote myself to researching my family tree. Don't know if you've ever explored your own but I will tell you that it requires a lot of dedicated focus. My left brain just sings doing this kind of work and becomes a bit of a brain hog about it. Now, I know myself well enough to accept this and move forward with it. But once Spring came, it was move over LB because your creative counterpart is all rested up and ready to play. 

I was inspired by Tara Leaver's most recent 7 day mini series challenge. I have long resisted painting the same thing over and over again and I don't really have a good reason for why, just innate stubbornness. So confronting something I usually avoid seemed like a good place to start. 

I would use the same photo reference and create a new piece each day using a different medium. Pencil, water soluble ink, charcoal, chalk pastels, watercolour, mixed media and collage. There was - to my mind anyway - an organic progression to this process. The drawing became easier each day I did it; I developed my values before moving into colour. Each day seemed to build on the previous ones. 

I had never worked with chalk pastels before so that was a first for me. This last one bottom right was intended to be just acrylic but after I gessoed the paper I started playing with whatever I felt like so it ended up being a combo of Inktense blocks, Sharpie pen, water soluble markers and acrylic paint. It was also done with a bright yellow underpainting beneath everything but the blue and purple berries. 

Not surprisingly, there is something about each piece I like but no one favourite. And yes, there are only 6 images here. These were done on 5 x 7 cold pressed paper and when it came time to do the collage I found the small size quite restrictive so that one will have to wait for now. 

Okay, enough for now. I have some pieces from my orphan drawer to play with next. 

Colourful Bugs part 2

I told myself that after this, I was done with this colouring page but now that I see it here on my monitor I definitely want to go back and make all of the legs black. Plus tidy up a couple of the red beetles. Just not happy with those. 

My faves are the indigo ones but that's a no brainer because in my world indigo sings. 

Okay, it looks like there'll definitely be a part 3 to this post. It's a particularly miserable, rainy, trying to be warm but too damp to get there, kind of day so I my even get it done today. We'll see. Or I may need to go and paint some happy tulips! 

Spring Cleaning

Yes, it's that time again - the temps are warming, grass is greening. I did a major purge of my art supply cupboard just last month so no need to change anything there. My studio is pretty darn tidy if I do say so myself, well, within the parameters of being functional which is key. 

So what''s left to be done?? That seemingly never ending problem of the cat hair to pigment ratio in my watercolour palette. It finally got the better of me while I was playing in my paints this afternoon. 

So, time to scrub it out and lay out fresh paint. This is also the time that I make brutal decisions as to what pigments stay and which are relegated back to the cupboard. 

Indigo has long been a favourite of mine when you need that perfect hit of dark but sadly, it just doesn't play nice in my palette. It somehow manages to ooze it's way into the other paint wells during the wee hours of the morning and continues to do so even as I try and clean it up. So, back to the tube for you!

Undersea green is another one that may be put on time out, especially since I plan to bring Q gold back to the palette - mix it with some ultramarine blue and boom howdy!

But the cat hair really has to go.

The Emergence of Orange

Didn't realize until I went to post this one that orange has suddenly made a more prominent appearance in my work lately. Definitely not one of my usual hues but perhaps I'm gearing up for autumn.

A Couple of Card Ideas

 

Playing around with some 5 x 7 watercolour cardstock that I had on hand. (It's always good to shop at home!) The one on the left incorporates some stamps I had along with some line and wash work. The puffin was painted from a photograph by a UK photographer named Gary Jones, with permission granted via the Paint My Photo website. You can see more of his work at www.portraitsofnature.co.uk

Beets- update

As scary as putting in the darks can seem, the impact they have is undeniable. I'm very happy with the beets themselves; now I just have to take a deep breath and go back in and tackle the leaves.

Of course that means making sense out of what now is just a jumble of green.

New Coffee Mug

Anyone who knows me knows that I practically have my coffee mug surgically attached to my hand. So when Touille decided to push my old one over just to see what happened - well let's just say it was a sad day in Nukiville.

I soon was on the hunt to find my new favourite mug. It had to be of good size and weight, fit well in my hand and then there's that aspect of je ne sais quoi - it needed to speak to me.

As soon as I saw this one I knew it was the one . Well, actually it's the two - it came in a matched set. So, should boredom strike the calico princess again, I'm ready.

Updates on unfinished EDM pieces

Continuing to work daily, here are a couple of updates of pieces started at the end of last month. The eggs I am forcing myself to leave alone, it's just too overworked already and I think I've salvaged as much as I can from it. They still look more like rocks than eggs to me and no, the random splattering didn't help LOL.

The purple martin house is only at the intermediate stage so there will be another posting about it when it's further along. I need to strengthen the shadow under the left side of the roof as well as the bottom of the house itself. And of course put the birds in!

 

9/6 - okay this is where I'm stopping. 

Moving Forward

While I'm extremely satisfied with my efforts and commitment to last month's challenge, I'm looking forward to the flexability of choosing my own subjects for my daily art. And breaking out of the sketchbook format, today's piece notwithstanding LOL.

I'm going to continue to do something creative every day but I'm relaxing on the daily posting for now and just see how it goes. If I find over the next week that one spurs on the other then I'll put that back in to my routine.

I have checked out the Every Day in June prompts and can fall back on them for ideas if need be. There's also another blog group that I want to check out that posts a different prompt every two weeks. They've been around for awhile so will have an archive of past prompts to pick from as well. Plus the Virtual Paintout visits Estonia this month. A plethora of riches awaits!

EDM2015 - eggs

These got terribly overworked and I'm still not happy with them. They look more like robin's egg blue stones than eggs. Have restated some lines here in pencil to see if that will help but definitely not a given.

They also would make more sense if done in a nest but that ship has likely sailed for this sketch. We'll see what I can come up with. (I'm writing this June 1st, having painted this much yesterday, the final day of Every Day in May challenge.)

I had an absolute blast participating in the challenge and I know my art is the better for it. I've tried a number of new approaches to my work, most of which I've been really happy with the results. I've also found that I'm problem solving situations with more confidence and greater speed.

Having said that I think the biggest thing to come out of this month is I've learned to slow down and be patient. Watercolour insists that I work at its pace and not my own. Accept that and all sorts of possibilities open up to me.