Collage

We have some birch trees just down the walk that have very peel-y bark. The other day I broke some of the peels off and brought them home to use as collage material. I soaked the bark in very dilute matte medium in hopes of sealing it so it won't deteriorate quickly, then I glued it to a half-sheet of paper onto which I'd spread some gesso and then a dilute wash of acrylic paint. I put the gesso on so it might suggest birch trees and I used colored pencils to bring those shapes up a bit. I also, obviously, stuck on a piece of paper which I'd painted for collage. I don't know whether it's finished or not and if not, where to go next. Suggestions?

Mining and Cropping

Mining? That's when you take mat corners or a mat with a smaller hole than the original painting and move it around to find gems. Cropping is the actual cutting of the original for framing. At least that's the way I define those words. Anyway, I spent some time this morning mining the first painting I did last week at the mixed media workshop. The original is 18 x 24 and most of these minings would be framed so they show something like 4 x 6. I'm aware that some of these possibilities overlap so they couldn't all be framed as they look. That's the beauty of Photoshop! Do you have favorites?

Mixed Media

I just spent 3 days at a mixed media workshop taught by my friend Nancy Barch. It was in Easton, MD, and the three of us from here who went as students stayed at some friends' house about an hour away from Easton. The workshop was a blast and so was the eating and visiting at Cheryl and Paul's house.

Here's what I did, in the order I did them (more or less). They're small images here but will get much bigger if you click on them. I invite critiques and suggestions.

This is full sheet size and will probably be cropped or mined for smaller paintings but I don't know how yet.

I've already cropped this but it may get some more. Collaging over and under the gold paint.

I don't like this one so it will get something done to it. It's mostly tissue paper glued to a half sheet then painted over. The darks are collaged over the tissue.

Most of the class was a bit lost doing the non-representational work the first day so Nancy did a demo of abstracted flowers. This has paint first, then collage and some pastel to make the checkerboard. Fun but a little too cute. 

This is unfinished. I started with lots of texture on plain paper mostly made with white collage and heavy, textured gel medium, then slopped paint all over. There was such a deep puddle that I threw a length of waxed paper over it to take up some of the color. Waxed paper with color put on it like this makes wonderful collage paper. But with this one I liked the look of the waxed paper over it so I stopped there. I'll glue the waxed paper down around the edges and then see where I want to go next.

Nancy does wonderful monochromatic work so she did a demo of what she does to get the gray backgrounds. The woodcut-looking collage in the middle here is waxed paper again, this time laid over wet black gesso then picked up. It's been living in my collage box for ages waiting for the perfect spot. The hard part of these is the restraint it takes not to add a lot of color!

Several layers of collage over paper with a wash on it. On the top I printed the net-like look by painting some rug hooking scrim and using it like a stamp. There's more work to be done here.

For the texture on this one, I used gesso rather than the gel medium. Before it was completely dry I floated some black ink over the whole thing, mixing in a bit of blue. Then it looks like I used waxed paper again to pick up some of the ink that didn't soak into the gesso (after three days of this work it's hard to remember exactly what I did). My next step will be to blacken all around the shape and probably collage some more solid paper into the shape. Or not. Depends on what inspires me at the time.

Nancy has a friend who does incredible silk screening and he gives her test pieces. She uses, and shares, the test pieces of backgrounds. So that's what's the delicious gradation in the background. I threw on some collage pieces (painted tissue and waxed paper) then it was time to clean up and come home. I've given you two versions here. The first is the whole sheet and the second is cropped. Which one do you like and why?

Long time!

Well, the move is essentially over. We've been in for 6 weeks. I still haven't found a home for all the framed paintings we moved, but other that that we're pretty well settled.

I have been painting, some, but just not posting. Here are some of the paintings I've done that I'm willing to own up to:

I bought some daffodils at Trader Joe's the other day and have painted them all sorts of different ways. I'm working on a collage that I hope will give the feel of daffodils without having to delineate them quite as much as these.

I found a piece of illustration board which I'd sprayed various textures on and decided that it was a perfect underpainting for a Tuscan scene. This painting with watercolor, conté crayon and pastel is loosely based on a photo taken in Siena.

Late afternoon one day after it had snowed, I looked out the sliders into our backyard and was taken by the abstract quality and glow of this (rather ugly) bush and the fence. This one is all watercolor.

I did most of this painting by masking the white and painting everywhere else, then masking the next lightest areas and painting everywhere else, etc, until the paper was almost completely covered with masking fluid and the buildup of paint layers made the very dark. I then used soft pastels to put detail in, especially in the eyes and noses. Amari on the left and Numa on the right.

This is soft pastel. I like it a lot although I think it needs a tweak or two.

Moving

We're moving and I've started a moving blog http://janefran.blogspot.com/

long time!

It's been way too long since I've posted. So Helen (who nags me every time I see her), here's some recent work.



The photo for this one was taken from a friend's deck a couple of weekends ago. We had spectacular sunsets, as you can see.










These two are 1/8th-sheet demos for my watercolor class. The woods was especially quick with no drawing except the too-dark paint outlines of the light tree trunks.




I started this one several weeks ago as a pastel but when I did the watercolor underpainting the paper buckled too much so I collaged, right over the sanded paper. I pulled it out today and tweaked it a lot with pastel over the collage. You might possibly perhaps recognize that it was done from the same reference photo as my previous post.

A pastel and underpainting

I've been working in watercolor only for the last six weeks or so. Yesterday I took a photo on my way home from teaching my watercolor class that just called out for pastel, so that's what I did today. I started with a wild, watercolor underpainting which got almost completely covered with the pastel: probably a good thing! You probably won't believe that the underpainting provided a map for the pastel, but it did. It was fun to do this one. I don't think I'm quite finished (no pastel is totally finished until it's framed) and I invite critiques.


This is the day after the miners in Chile were successfully rescued from their mine. I'm proud to say that my oldest son works for the company that made the equipment that both drilled the small hole which found that the miners were alive, and that drilled the large hole through which they were rescued. He didn't go to Chile but they did send a service tech. Here's a link to our local Fox TV channel and their feature on Schramm, Inc.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/west-chester-co.-aids-in-chilean-rescue

Back to Watercolor

After a summer of mostly painting with pastels, I'm painting in watercolor again. I'll be teaching watercolor this fall; I needed to rewet my brushes. Then on Sunday I attended a fabulous demo, part of the Philadelphia Water Color Society's annual meeting. The artist is Sarah Yeoman. Here's her web site: http://www.sarahyeoman.com/. As a start, I've been working on eighth sheets, about 7" x 10". I would love to have critiques.

Sky

I've been too close to this now so I need to let it be and look at it some other day with new eyes. The photo was taken as it was clearing after a 3-inches-per-hour storm that included a tornado warning. I was driving to the airport and took photos of the sky at stoplights with my iPhone through the windshield. No rain by then on my route. Comments and critiques invited.

Mixed Media Workshop

It's that time of year again . . . the annual summer, weeklong, mixed media workshop. As usual it was intense and exhausting and loads and loads of fun. This time we learned image transfer in addition to renewing (or learning) so many other MM techniques. And I'm getting better! My composition skills are improving enough that I got a "well done" from the teacher. What a thrill! I've only taken this workshop probably eight or ten times.

Anyway, here's a link to a Picasa slide show:

I don't know how many of these will survive in their present state after they've been put away for a while then looked at anew. For that matter, I don't know how many will survive at all. So if you have critiques or suggestions, they're welcome.

If you want to see any larger, click on the little Picasa logo in the bottom right hand corner of the slide show, then on the name of the album, Mixed Media. From there you'll see all the images and a click on one of the thumbnails will get you a larger version.

Refreshing!

My daughter-in-law took this photo of her niece, my granddaughter, and it just called out to be painted. I have been doing watercolor underpaintings on my pastel paper for a while now, usually very loose and not trying to get anything very clear. This time I did a much more detailed watercolor, with black ink loosely over the background, then added the pastel. Most of the background is the watermedia painting while the figure (and all those drops!) are pretty much covered with pastel. I keep seeing little tweaks calling me every time I walk by the painting . . . do you have any to suggest? Thank you, Lisa, for the reference.

Along the Dochart, take 2

My thanks to all who made comments about this painting. I took in consideration what everyone said and tweaked a bit, making it a stronger painting, I think. Unless there's something glaring, I think it's done. Of course, you can see colors that are more true in the larger image you get when you click on this one.

Along the Dochart

I don't think this is finished but it's time for input from others. The photo was taken in Killin, Scotland, when we were there a few years ago. The painting has an underpainting of watercolor with pastel over that.

Big Green Wave

This pastel is from a photo that one of my watercolor students wants to paint. I'm not terribly experienced in painting waves and water, so I said we could each paint the painting together and learn together. So she emailed me her photo. I worked with the photo for a long time to get the wave in the water luminescent then spent yesterday painting it in pastels. I know, pastels go from dark to light and make this much easier to paint than the light to dark of watercolor. Maybe I started with pastels because I was too lazy to put them away and get out my watercolors. I plan to work on a series of small watercolors of this photo over the weekend in hopes of learning enough to be able to teach rather than experiment so much in class.
I started this painting with an underpainting which I managed to photograph this time, along with a couple of in-process steps. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the focus on my camera had been switched to manual, so most of these are badly out of focus. Maybe you can get the idea of the earlier steps.

Finished???

Do you think I'm finished? If not, why not?