Begin

begin

Old English beginnan "to begin, attempt, undertake," form of onginnan perhaps, "to open, open up" (cf. O.H.G. in-ginnan "to cut open, open up," also "begin, undertake"

to proceed to perform the first or earliest part of some action; commence; start

to originate; be the originator of

to come into existence

Do you ever have trouble getting started? Beginning?


I do, sometimes. Many times, I wait until something is fully formed in my head before I start putting it together. I think I miss out, though, when I don't just go ahead and start with whatever glimmer of an idea I have and see what happens ... or even begin with no idea at all. Because, no matter how I begin, the idea - in the making of it - will almost always

transform

change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose

change in condition, nature, or character; to undergo a change in appearance or character;

become transformed


It's never exactly what it was in my head.


"Too often, we are so preoccupied with the destination that we forget the journey ..." ~ anonymous

"... let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before." Let your soul take you were you long to be ... Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before." ~ Erich Fromm

fly

flit, flutter, hover, soar

clever, alert, wide awake, first recorded 18th c, reinvented in 1990s

to rise


In making these three small paintings, I used mostly the techniques I've done here before ... some resist with pastes and glazes, a bit of silk screen, some relief and embossing, etc.

To a turquoise and lime green background, I added some titanium white stripes and magenta spots. To make the spots, I cut out a stencil of watercolor paper (I ran out of acetate, but this worked better than I expected), and did a thin wash through the holes.


This is a product I find handy. It's called EZ Screen Print. It's a light sensitive sheet coated with emulsion that can be exposed in sunlight and then used as a screen without a frame. At $10 or more a sheet, it's a lot more expensive than regular silk screening supplies, but it's convenient and works well on a smaller canvas like this. I can't ever seem to use products in the way they were intended, so your mileage may vary as they say, but I just used straight from the tube acrylic paint and pushed it through the screen with a palette knife ...


and added text with permanent ink.





See you next week!

Impress

impress: 1325–75; ME <>impressus ptp. of imprimere to press into or upon, impress, equiv. to im- + pressus ptp. of premere (comb. form -primere) to press

to press (a thing) into or on something.

to produce (a mark, figure, etc.) by pressure; stamp; imprint:

to apply with pressure, so as to leave a mark.



I love art journals. Or, rather, I love the idea of art journals. I've never been able to keep one. I get a few pages in and mess up a page or look back and want to change things around. But I need a place to put sketches and ideas ... So, this is a flexible art journal that can be added to and changed at any time.

The covers of this journal are made of 1/8 inch thick, double sided masonite. I like this as a foundation for small paintings and it's thin enough to work for covers, about the same thickness as book board and very smooth and sturdy. I've cut two pieces of this to approximately 5 x 7 in and drilled three holes in both to fit rings.

I covered most of the masonite with a thin coat of light modeling paste. This will hold impressions made with stamps or anything else. The depth of the stamp will determine how thick the modeling paste should be.

After letting this dry for about fifteen minutes or so, until it was just starting to harden on the surface, I used rubber and metal stamps dipped in water to stamp into the paste. Here, I've made this a quite subtle effect. But any stamp or any size can be used and thicker or thinner layers of paste.

Once dry, I sanded the impressed modeling paste and painted a few thin washes of magenta and turquoise, masking off the stripes with tape.

On a small, stretched canvas, the effect is more obvious because I've used larger stamps and a thicker layer of paste. The technique is the same ... I used a palette knife to put on a thin coat of modeling paste (which will also act as a resist), allowed it to dry for fifteen minutes or so, then used stamps dipped in water.


Once fully dry, I sanded lightly and did a thin wash with quinacridone magenta.


Added some lime green stripes ...


... and a silk screened moonflower.


I use this technique on large canvases to add text ... and imperfection makes it unique.

What kind of impression will you make?



Karen Valentine, from My Desert Cottage, is having a "Where Bloggers Create" blog party. What a fabulous way to get to know the other bloggers out there! If you'd like to participate, stop in at her blog for the details.

April 22, 2010 ... Resist

resist: 1325–75; ME resisten (v.) < L resistere to remain standing,
a substance that prevents or inhibits some effect from taking place

I really like a textured looking background, but I paint in very thin washes, which isn't compatible with the thicker and more opaque layers that are usually seen in mixed media. Putting down some kind of resist before I add color helps create some dimension and interest.

I start with a very lightly gessoed canvas that is still quite porous. Too much gesso will make the canvas too slick and not porous enough. I also experimented on a lightly gessoed Moleskine page, and bare watercolor paper.

For the resist in my projects today, I used a regular glossy gel medium, an ultra heavy glossy gel medium, and modeling paste. Anything that makes a mark that is less porous than the canvas or paper will work as a resist. There are several different ways to put the resist down. Any kind of handmade or rubber stamp lightly coated with gloss medium can be pressed into the canvas or paper. A palette knife can be used to spread an imperfect coat of modeling paste in places on the canvas ...


Using an old brush, glossy gel medium can be flicked in spots at random over the canvas.


Screens, stencils, silk screens and anything else with an open pattern can be used to press modeling paste or gel medium through.


Once the different resists are down, I add thin washes of acrylic paint. For this project, I wanted a subtle effect with the resists, so I made them fairly thin. The more porous canvas will soak up more pigment than the resist leaving an interesting design.


I wanted pink stripes and used masking tape as something of a resist. When using tape, the paint can't be too watery, otherwise it will seep under the edges of the taper. That can actually be an interesting effect, but I didn't want that here so went with a drier paint ... in pink!

My pink is made of Liquitex Quinacridone Magenta mixed with Titanum White.


I decided to use a silk screened image over the stripes ...


and added some moonflowers ...


This works the best on canvas, for me anyway. The effect is usually more subtle on paper.


Products used ...

Liquitex

• Ultra Heavy Gel Medium, glossy
• Gel Medium, glossy
• Modeling Paste, light
• Vivid Lime Green
• Yellow Light Hansa
  
• Quinacridone Magenta
• Titanium White
  
• Cobalt Teal
• Turquoise Deep
• Sap Green
  

April 15, 2010

When the moon blooms
Like a flower in the night
~ Mark Heard

I've always been fascinated with moonflowers ... they're evening/night blooming flowers. Unfortunately, I've already killed my moonflower seedlings for this year. I let them get chilled. They have to be kept really warm. I'll have to settle with painting them.

This is a 6" x 6" hand stretched 11 ounce canvas with 2 1/2" sides (I'll put up a tutorial on how to make these soon). I love the chunkiness of it. I lightly gessoed the canvas. Too much gesso and any watery paint will just pool on the surface. This way, the canvas stays matte and a bit porous and it's more like working on watercolor paper.

I made this for our new neighbors. We live in the country and have been smack in the middle of 40 acres for years. We finally have a neighbor, almost within shouting distance ... a nice family with little kids. Anyway, this is on a 5" x 5" hand stretched 7 ounce canvas with 1" sides. I kind of like working small sometimes.

It needs ... something. It doesn't seem finished. The spiral shape is also know as a golden spiral ... It's on a 12" x 12" hand stretched 11 ounce canvas with 2 1/2" sides. I've used tinted and untinted gel medium as a resist here.

Three on Thursdays

I've been away ... playing with fairy angels ...



and making things in the kitchen ...


I've been blogging elsewhere ... at my Raw on $10 a Day (or Less!) blog ...

and even written a book ...



I've also been thinking about making art again ...


So, I'll be showing up here regularly now. On Thursdays. Like clockwork. With something to show you. Three pieces of art, I think, is a good goal. Yes, three. On Thursdays.

We've been talking about art, over at Gary Reef's ning site (which is a great site and wonderful group of people, btw) ... Gary asked the question, "Is tracing really drawing or is it cheating?" ... This was my response ... what's your opinion?

These conversations that become "this is art, but that isn't art", or "that's just craft," are always interesting.

Art is the idea. It's a noun.

Craft is a verb, it's whatever one does to make ideas reality ...To make something is to "craft" it ... we don't "art" things,we craft them. So the act of drawing or tracing or making stencils or using images or found objects is craft ... the idea as well as the final result is art ...

Kiki Smith is one of my favorite artists, and is highly respected in the international art world. She can't draw well. She can't sculpt well. She can't paint well. And she doesn't even try. She's not a craftsperson, she's an artist. One of her works is a limited edition of a big clear glass egg with a golden yellow yolk inside. She conceived the idea, and then paid crafts people to make them, but SHE is the artist of the work. She never even touched them as part of their making, but it was still her idea that made them come into being. The idea that being skilled in a craft is actually what art is all about simply isn't true. What's important with her art is what she's saying.

Also, the point isn't to make sure everyone knows how hard we slaved over a particular piece. In fact, it's the opposite. Once we become conscious of how this was done or that was done (especially if it looks like it was difficult for the artist), we've moved onto the craft part and have forgotten the art.

There's always such a difference between a drawing by someone who can't draw and who obviously labored over it, and someone who does abstract drawings ... a lot of the time the very same "deficiencies" are in both, but the abstract was intended to look that way and appears effortless. (They're both art, but the one is saying, at least in part, "look how hard I worked on this!")

If tracing is cheating, than so is using images in collage. I've always been able to draw well. In school it was my "trick" ... everyone had their thing they could do, and I could draw. But there wasn't necessarily art to it because many times all I was doing was trying to imitate what I was seeing. I wasn't saying anything. I thought it was "art" at the time because it looked good. As I became a little more sophisticated in how I think, I realized that wasn't necessarily true. And I've never been able to paint very well and have always struggled with technique, especially with acrylics, but still that's nearly always been my chosen medium, and I'm only just now bringing some more extensive drawing back into my things ... but only because it serves my purpose in what I'm trying to say.

I'm working on something right now where I had the models lie down on newsprint and I traced around them and I'm transferring that to big canvases. The paintings will be life size. Does that make it not art or cheating? Of course not. The whole point of the art was to preserve their actual shape and size in a painting.

When I look at art as art, I really don't care how it got made, I care how it makes me feel and what it says and means to me.

But the question wasn't "is it art? ... the question was actually "is it drawing?" No, tracing isn't drawing. Drawing is a specific skill and craft. Tracing is a specific skill and craft. Painting is a specific skill and craft. We don't confuse painting with drawing, right? We know which is which. The same is true for drawing and tracing. They are both skills and crafts, but they are not the same.

See you next Thursday.