"NEW" TIMES TWO!

Thinking up blog post titles can be as much fun as creating titles for paintings. The first "new" thing is that my redesigned web site is up and running. Click on the blog title to check it out. One of the best changes is that I can update it myself. It is also more interactive, so viewers can leave comments. Kevin is now ready to help other artists with a custom web site that they can self manage. $200 is his going rate but since I provide dinner every night, I get the deep family discount (free!) I have some rearranging of paintings to do and some workshops to add. Hopefully I will get to that by the weekend.

The second "new" thing is I am starting to work on the examples for the next chapter in my book. LINE is an interesting element and a big favorite of mine. It is most often used as an accent in a painting. Except for Asian Brush Painting, line is rarely the dominant element in a painting. I was searching for a new idea when I thought of reversing the process I used for my line painting in the Nick Series where I redrew the image over and over with successively smaller brushes and darker paint. In this painting I used Permanent Masking Medium. It acts like maskoid but can't be rubbed off. I changed brush sizes and started with pale yellow and went progressively darker with the paint. I did a final line drawing with a dark line. I think it reads as LINE as a dominant element and I am intrigued with the possibilities for this product. I would like to try it again. That's what is so wonderful about experiments. There is no attachment to the outcome and it leads to planned ideas based on the unexpected results.