IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN!

This was a piece of watercolor paper that I had put a band of textured gesso on as a demo. I decided to cover it with the ink. The ink is very blue in appearance on the gesso section. The ink will lift off of the gesso with water but the bleach changes the color to orange which gives both a warm/cool contrast and a blue/orange compliment contrast at the same time. I put two full strength coats of ink on the paper. Today I started playing around with the bleach. I was able to get the layering of values I wanted on the paper but it is too orange. It wouldn't lighten enough. I think I will go back to just one layer. I like how it looks on the gesso area. That area is totally liftable, so I sprayed it with acrylic fixative. Tomorrow I will go back in with some acrylic and see what happens. I put up some detail photos so you can see things more clearly. I was using a stick, a dip pen and all kinds of brushes. I went to Michaels and bought a bag of cheap brushes to use with the bleach. I was also experimenting with all of these ideas on YUPO. It moved around too much on the slippery surface, so I think I will move on. I guess Tyvek is next!

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR!

I don't know where this expression originated but it seems to be appropriate for how I feel about the final results. The color didn't photograph very well and the odd dark shape in the lower right hand corner is the arm of my chair that I used to prop up the painting to photograph it. Still, I think I am on to something with this technique but I am not happy with this image. Her nose is too long, so it ruined the face for me. I think I removed too much of the ink. You can't see the effect of the bleach enough. This will probably see collage or gesso in the future. I think I will do the next one by totally covering the page with full strength ink and draw with a chalk pencil then bleach out leaving more of the ink behind. This painting is a full sheet. I think I will work on quarter sheets until I have the right combination.

Our branch library is closed for renovation, so I returned my books to the main library in downtown San Mateo. When I walked in there were arrows on the floor leading to a Friends of the Library 1/2 price sale. Well, I practically swooned! All the art books were marked $1 up to $3 and then they were sold at half of this ridiculously low price. I decided to be nice and leave a few books for other people. I paid a whopping $5.25 for my bag load of books which included a hard bound 1961 original edition of Faber Birren's "Creative Color". Signed copies of this book are going for $129 but, alas, no signature could be found. Since I already have this book, I will have to find a creative way to pass it on. Any ideas?

2ND BLEACH PAINTING EXPERIMENT

After completing the first bleach painting, I wondered what would happen if I used different dilutions of ink and bleach. That's what this painting is investigating. I let the computer do the hard work and broke the image down into 4 values, printed out the results and used that as my guide. I drew the shapes of the values in with a charcoal pencil and then painted away. This ink is decidedly blue when diluted. I let stage one dry, then went about bleaching out the ink areas. I diluted the bleach about 50/50 and it seemed to work. There was practically no odor, so this is a good discovery. I played around with a little stamping. I can't seem to help myself! I'm not sure if I took too much off or not. Tomorrow I will be sitting at Gallery Concord, so I will take my paints and put the color in. If you are in the area, stop by and say hi.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KITTY!"

Kitty Weiss is a member of our critique group. She is an amazing artist, great friend and generally an inspiration to all of us. Today we managed to give Kitty a surprise 80th birthday celebration. Everyone made an Artist Trading Card (2.5 x 3.5) which was put into a book. Karen Druker, the Pearl Mesta of our group, was the hostess. As always everything was gorgeous and sumptuous. A very special day for a very special lady. Many more happy birthdays, Kitty.

Art brings wonderful people together for friendship and inspiration. I hope your circle of art friends adds as much richness to your life as mine does for me.

EXCITING NEW TECHNIQUE!!!

I found a very interesting book at the library called "Painting without a Brush" by David Ferry. Printed in 1991, it is still available on line. In fact, I had to pay as much for postage as for the book! The library is a very expensive place for me. When I find a book I like, I want to own it. This book has lots of interesting mixed media ideas. Today I decided to try one that really intrigued me. The idea is to use bleach to lift areas of ink. Above is the final result. Here is the process I followed:
First I drew the image with charcoal onto a sheet of smooth watercolor paper. Next, I took a white candle and drew some lines that will act as a resist. Then I took some non-permanent black ink (permanent ink has shellac in it and won't work) and brushed the ink over the paper, leaving some of the area white. When that dried, I then used various brushes and applied bleach. Be sure you have decent ventilation as the bleach odor can be fairly strong. The bleached area turned shades of orange. I want to explore different strengths of ink and different dilutions of bleach to see how much variation I can achieve. When the paper dried, I applied more charcoal, then sprayed with an acrylic fixative. Lastly, I glazed some acrylic color over areas and used titanium white acrylic from the tube for more opaque passages.

This was so much fun, I can't wait to try it again tomorrow. Now that I have the idea, there are some variations I want to try.

BRUSH PEN PRACTICE

I recently purchased a Japanese Brush Pen (synthetic nylon bristles) that has permanent ink in the cartridges. I decided to spend some time today practicing drawing with this pen. It takes a little while to learn how to manipulate the brush to get a variety of line. I did 11 drawings today and have posted 4 here. The first is actually the last. I think it came out the best. The first ones left something to be desired.

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.