BOOK DEDICATION!

1ST PORTRAIT - A SELFIE1

While on Orcas Island off the coast of northwest Washington State,  I looked for another of the handmade watercolor sketch books that I have fallen in love with.  They are made by a resident of the San Juan Islands (Orcas is part of this chain of islands)  My kids insisted on buying it for me for Mother's Day.  I must have done something right to raise such great boys.  

I have decided to dedicate this book to just portraits.  This is the first painting in my new book.  A self portrait seemed most appropriate to start things out with.  I took a chance and drew directly with acrylic ink with a stick.   I like the square format.  I am using the gorgeous new QoR watercolors from Golden.  They sent me some samples to try out and I have been extremely impressed.  They are highly saturated and luxurious feeling.  They take a little longer to dry in the palette but rewet very easily.  

You can see the beautiful end paper to the left of the painting.  Here are two other views of this book.  I love the beautiful red leather exterior and the gold and patterned oriental paper inserts in the front and back of the book.  The spine has wonderful stitching and a hand made button for the closure.  It feels so decadent and luxurious.  The only fear is messing up one of the pages.  

If you would like to inquire about these beautiful books, they are made by Susie Shipman

www.IslandBoundBooks.com

MORE PLANE AIR PAINTINGS

Here are two more digital paintings I did while sitting on the plane.  I was having a difficult time finding interesting faces to work with on the iPad mini.  I was going to purchase a magazine at the airport just for this purpose but decided not to waste the money.  I found these two guys, one in a discarded newspaper and the other in the inflight magazine.  I like this app, called ArtStudio.  I just have to figure out how to turn off the "blend" feature on the brushes.  So far, nothing I do has worked.  If someone knows the secret, please share!

I am looking forward to getting back into the studio and working with real paint, real brushes and real paper.  Digital is fun, but there is nothing like the physical, tactile sensation of slinging paint.

PLANE AIR PAINTING!

This is my idea of Plane Air painting!  No wind, no rain, no bugs, comfortable seat (relatively speaking compared to sitting on the ground or a rock!) I have been doing a ridiculous amount of travel lately and this is a little sketch I did on the way to Orcas Island in Washington state.  I try to use a photo in the magazine provided by the airlines.  Not much to pick from this time but I do like her face and I was trying out a different digital app.  I have downloaded so many but keep going back to the same ones, so I decided to expand my knowledge and try something else.  This one is called Art Studio.  All these programs have similarities but differences, as well.  This one had some ways of working with the brushes that seemed different.  One sort of smudged what you had put down like it was pastel.  Anyway, I was having fun and passing the time. 

Repacking today and then off again for the weekend.  I am looking forward to being home on Monday and then having the entire month free to paint.  

If you want to enter the San Diego Watercolor Society International exhibition, May 10th is the deadline.  You can go to their website for information.  Skip Lawrence is the judge this year.  I took a chance with my very experimental "Evolution" painting.  I won't be surprised if it is not accepted but I like it and if any juror is going to appreciate it, I think Skip would be the one.   You have to test the waters and not getting into a show is not the end of the world.  

IVORY AND GOLD!

IVORY & GOLD CONCERT

Last night good friends had a private concert in their home featuring a jazz duet called Ivory and Gold.  Ivory plays the piano and Gold plays a flute.  A wonderful pairing of instruments, talent and friendship!  I managed to snag a comfy arm chair with a non-obstructed view so I could sketch on my iPad mini.  I used my favorite Sketch Club app. Of course, the challenge was to draw a fast moving target!  The flute proved to be impossible but I did capture the essence of jazzy piano man.

EXTENDED ARM CONTINUOUS LINE DRAWINGS!

Yesterday I went to the last class of Mike Bailey's amazing 10 Week Beyond The Obvious workshop.  I have taken the class 4 times but I always try to go to the current class finale as a guest.  In 10 weeks all the participants have created at least 20 full sheet paintings.  There is one participant who manages to turn out 30, 40 or more.  The rest of us just shake our heads in amazement.  Each student creates a still life setup and they must stick with that composition throughout the 10 weeks.  The last class everyone brings in their 20 paintings and each person has an opportunity to arrange them in order of creation, placed under mats and then guests and fellow students file past the display.  We are allowed to take photos with the artists' permission.  I forgot to get permission to put some of them on the blog, so I can't show you the amazing work.  A pot luck luncheon follows.  It is always a fabulous day and a wonderful celebration of hard work, perseverance and amazing creativity on everyone's part.

One of the things I do is photograph many of the people in attendance.  It is a well known secret.  Naturally, there were some special faces that I fell in love with.  Today was a rainy day, perfect for staying in.  I thought I would do some drawing with a pen attached to a long wooden dowel device.  This allows me to put the paper on the floor and draw with a lot less control.  I think it creates a very interesting drawing.  I tried to do a continuous line drawing with my "extended arm".  My exciting discovery was how unrecognizable these faces are with this technique!  All but one of the above drawings is from the same image.  I'm not sure what I will do with these drawings but it sure was fun making them.

DEMO RESULTS!

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to present a demo to the Fremont Art Association.  They are fortunate to have a "home" with a gallery, meeting space and workshop space in the heart of old town Niles.  They honored me with a large turn out and we had a great time.  Everyone was very friendly and receptive.  I am hoping to come back and present this workshop sometime in the near future.

This was the first time I have had the opportunity to give this new presentation which is part of my new workshop.  I took a failed painting out of the growing stack! and covered it with collage paper earlier in the day.  This was the base for my new painting.

I talked about using the iPad or similar device to break down an image into 3 values.  Using that image, I drew the darkest value shapes in with a charcoal pencil, then added the lightest values with a white hard pastel.  Here is the photo I took at that state.  I was holding the camera up high and was on tiptoes, so there was some distortion, but you get the idea.

Then using acrylic inks in deep blue and burnt sienna plus an opaque acrylic white, I proceeded to fill in the painting.  Normally I would have sprayed the charcoal and pastel first but I didn't want to asphyxiate the crowd, so I just painted directly on top.  

Now that I have had time to evaluate the painting, I will finish it up.  It is always a good idea to ruminate on a piece you are working on.  It creates a little distance and different perspective.

EVOLUTION 2

EVOLUTION 2

Yesterday I decided I wanted to do some string drawings.  If you missed my post on this fun way to draw, you take a long mop string, dip one end into a bottle of ink and then try to draw with this dangling, limp noodle.  Very interesting drawings result.  I have a large supply of blank newsprint paper that I usually use for this exercise.  Here is the drawing I created.

MOP STRING DRAWING EVOLUTION 2

I must have attempted 5 or 6 images.  This is the only one I liked.  Next I decided to see how newsprint would take to mono printing with my large Gelli Plate.  When you add acrylic to even the cheapest  paper, it adds stability and functionality.  I thought I could practice mono printing ideas on the paper I just drew on.  Here is the drawing after I covered it with multiple mono printing passes.

GELLI PLATE MONO PRINT EVOLUTION 2

The original drawing was pretty much obscured by the printing, so I wanted to see if I could paint a decent painting on this low grade paper.  I spread acrylic gel over an old unsuccessful painting that had collage on it and bonded the mono print on top.  

Today I painted on top with heavy acrylic using a credit card and a coffee stirrer like a palette knife.  The collage under the paper gave the surface a rough texture so the paint went on very brokenly when scraped across.

STAGE ONE EVOLUTION 2 PORTRAIT

When I got it this far I was unhappy with the right eye and I needed to make further adjustments to the shape of his face.    Here is the final result with a few details.  Surprisingly, I can use this paper to do finished paintings on.  Wahoo!

So, here's the question:  Would this painting be considered a collage since it is painted on a single sheet of paper with nothing glued on top?