EVER SO SLOWLY!

This painting is going much slower than I had hoped but it is coming along.  I am using Dr. Ph Martin's Spectralite liquid acrylics and they have a very bright quality.  Hopefully, I will be able to finish it up tomorrow.  The weather report is for rain, perfect for staying inside and painting.

MOVING AHEAD!

I sat at the gallery today and took lots of art to work on.  It was a very productive day.  We had a fair amount of visitors for a change, including my friend, Bonnie, accompanied by Beth.  Beth has a great sketch blog you can check out at http://bethbourland.wordpress.com/  What a wonderful surprise.  

I found some different tissue in my supply bin.  It is archival acrid free tissue by Lineco and it is stronger than what I normally use.  I think I bought it because it was on Anne Bagby's DVD but I never used it.  I was able to draw with a coffee stirrer stick on this tissue and I used red India Ink.  Some went through the tissue and caused the paper to stick to the gator board in spots but it didn't tear when I carefully pulled it away.  Here are the two drawings I did.  I can move them around and even turn them over if I want to change the direction of some of them.  I am excited about this way of trying out various compositions.

After I drew these images, I decided to paint on another page I had prepared a few days ago.  This one is  sharpie pen drawing on good quality tissue, collaged on top of an abstract collage design.  I purchased some Dr. Ph Martin's Spectralite Liquid Acrylics and wanted to try them out.  I like the paints very much.  I added some white ink where needed.    I'm not sure if I should cut this painting apart and mat each image separately.  I may use a little gloss medium as it looks quite matte and I can't decide if like the contrast that exists now.  Always so many little decisions.  

IT'S DONE...NO FOOLING!

My critique group acts as my expert eyes.  Often, they see something I missed.  Sometimes their opinions are different from mine and I am not swayed.  Either way, I find it very helpful to know what others see and I value the knowledge at expertise from each of them.  Thursday morning we gather to share the week's efforts.  Right now, I feel this piece is finished.  I am happy I managed to keep much of the transparency of the background pieces.  I was particularly delighted where some of the pattern fell on the face in a serendipitous way (beside the eye and crease down from the nostril)

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER!

I realized I had enough of these daily drawings (see "Drawn to the Mirror" blog) to make a background for my next collage self portrait series.  I cut off the calendar information and laid them out, trying to keep the stronger patterns to the outside edges.  I used double stick removable tape to hold them in place.  It makes an interesting image just this way.

 I started to get nervous about proceeding with my idea.  How would it look?  I would hate to ruin all these drawings if my concept turned out "not so much"!  I am usually impatient and rush ahead, but today I decided to try a smaller version (15 x 15) to see the visual effect before I tackled the large (30" x 30") version.  Glad I did!  First off, I realized I needed to spray the papers with acrylic to keep some of the ink from smearing.  Not all of the drawings were done with permanent ink.  I had forgotten that little detail!

I added tissue paper over the top after collaging the drawings down.  I purposely added a some gesso stamped tissue in a few places to see what the effect would be.  It obscures the drawing too much.  I will leave that out of the large version.

 After the collage paper was dry, I drew an image in ink with a stick.  I didn't think the line was strong enough against the background, so I went over it with the wide Copic marker.

 I finished the painting with acrylic used in a transparent way.  I added some white gesso to recapture some lighter values.  These areas become more opaque but you can still see some of the background influences.

  Final evaluation:  Like the overall idea. I need to be a little more careful in my drawing so it doesn't get so "cartoon" like.  I find the heavy dark line a bit too strong.  I think I can tackle the larger painting with confidence now that I have worked out my strategy.

RUINED...WIPED OUT...RE-PAINTED!

Well, the glazing got away from me and I lost the light. Decided to use alcohol and wipe out the highlights. Bad idea. This is how you learn, the hard way! Well, the lifting was blotchy and the glazing had a seamless quality so the two didn't go together. I then decided to go more opaque and that finally killed the delicate glazed appearance that I liked in the beginning.

So now I can throw the thing away, go completely opaque or I can try and lift off much of the acrylic with alcohol. I opted for the last idea. The good news when you have ruined something is that what every you try next, it can't really harm anything. What a freeing feeling. I am intrigued with the idea that alcohol dissolves acrylic, so I wanted to see how this works. I put some alcohol in a dish and used a sponge roller to soak it up then I ran the roller over the painting a number of times. I took some paper towels and rubbed as much acrylic off as I could. This is the stage I took the first photo.

When the surface was dry, I reintroduced some charcoal. Next I brushed a coat of glazing medium over the surface, lifting the smeared charcoal in places. I worked back into the image with some additional glazing of a few colors, used a few stamps and then drew a little with a Japanese brush pen with permanent ink.

I like the final result. It is more mysterious, gritty and painterly than the first idea.