Sunday, August 22, 2010

wriggling out

chloe ~ watercolors and oil pastel on muslin

i didn't paint much last week; it was a week of selling stuff that i no longer use. on the one hand it seems almost miraculous the way money just appears in your paypal account, and on the other, you know you've spent a lot of time doing stuff to make it happen!

i think that my creek painting days are coming to an end... it's getting shady out there and the temps have really dropped. so these may be the last of the creek people. i guess then they'll be art room people. ; )


i have been stitching a lot. when i can't focus on painting, i love to sit and do the running stitch. i've finished the heart since i took this, but i still have more to do on the tie. this is silk from recycled saris on walnut ink stained muslin. one thing i've learned this summer is that walnut ink quickly fades in sunlight. it won't take long before this will look like plain 'ol unbleached muslin...

isabel ~ watercolors and oil pastel on muslin

back to painting... i used the paint that bled through the page from chloe for much of isabel. i like this idea. working on muslin is surely my first love... i love the way it looks so much!

dana ~ watercolors and oil pastel on old book page


here's my whole set-up for painting creek people. everything i need fits right in the watercolor case - daniel smith travel brush (the black thing), paper stump for blending, and a piece of oil pastel.


i also painted a creek person in this book. i got it on my trip - it's the sweetest little book of line drawings by matisse. i'm not going to paint on all of the pages - just some of them... it's very interesting doing this...

watercolors and oil pastel on book page


i like most of the drawings in the book way too much to paint over them...

i'm going to change the way i respond to comments... i'm going to e-mail my response to each person instead of posting it here - unless someone asks a question, and then i'll post the answer here. just so you know... : )

i'm going out of town again this week! roxanne and i are going to ashland tomorrow to play, and then later in the week i'm going south to visit friends...

i hope you have a beautiful week!

* * *

A crazy life, what! Particularly in view of the fact that I was supposed to be at work on the great American novel. Now and then, of course, I did write a few pages... My dodge now was watercolors. I dabbled in them, as the expression goes. It was a joy to go on turning them out like a madman - perhaps because I didn't have to prove anything, either to the world or myself. I wasn't hepped on becoming a painter. Not at all. I was simply wriggling out of the straitjacket.

~ Henry Miller, 'To Paint is to Love Again'


XO

Saturday, August 14, 2010

leo ~ oil pastel and watercolor on old book page

i had such a great time on my trip... i feel like i'm in love with this summer weather. with the trees, the plants growing in vegetable gardens; berry bushes and fast moving water -- everything! on the yardstick of the trees around me, i can see the sun getting lower and lower each day. i want to soak up every bit of these last summer days...


on my way, i sat here and painted 'leo' with water from the river...


the trees were big - i was happy! i left two stitched 'flags' here. when i packed up to go there was a heart rock under my bag...


seven days later, on my way home, i sat by this river and gazed at the wondrousness of this clean, green water...


the sky! it took an hour to go three miles at one point, but everyone seemed to have a great attitude. maybe it's not possible to be grouchy and impatient under a sky like this...


i drew some in my moleskine, too, while i was gone - this was an experiment using oil pastels and colored pencil. i found out that oil pastels don't smear around well in moleskine sketchbooks, especially darker colors...


i did look for more old books to paint in, but none seemed as perfect to me as these pages. and i asked myself why i'm looking for more books when i still have a couple hundred pages left in this one...


when i got home there was a book about the life and art of ben shahn waiting for me. i love his paintings; i love that they tell a story. and he paints wonderful beasts, which made me want to paint my own.

here's another beast that inspires me...

i have a lot of ideas about things i want to make. a few days i bought my first sewing pattern since high school. i want to use muslin and do some stitching, maybe use some silk sari ribbon... this jacket by agnes richter totally sends me (thanks, kathy). and i'll continue getting rid of stuff that i no longer need or want, which i've been doing for most of the summer. and until the sun gets so low that the creek is in deep shade, i'll keep sitting in the creek and painting...

* * *

'spring' ~ ben shahn

"Those who take it upon themselves to minister to the human spirit shall themselves be moved primarily by things of the spirit."

~ Ben Shahn


XO

Monday, August 2, 2010


some people have asked how i get the pages to lay flat... the answer is that they just stay flat. if i really use a lot of water they start to buckle a little, but not much. the other amazing thing is that the paint doesn't bleed through to the other side except around the edges of the page.


to create some shading i put the watercolors on the oil pastel (say, on the cheeks, or on the edges of the face/neck), then i rub the paint in with my fingers. if there's still water on top of the oil pastel after i get all of the color i want, i wipe it off with my finger. it's sort of hit or miss and detail is out of the question, but i like it...


i also used some shiny mica powder on her face. i've had this stuff for a while but never use it. now i have the whole set out on the table so i can use them more often. that sparkle is nice...


this is rhonda sheila, secretary by day, linebacker by night...


yes, enough with the hair!!


in my muslin journal... i got my twinkling H2Os out for the watercolor part... i have, uh, a lot of twinkling H2O colors; it's a real luxury to have all that color already mixed up and ready to go.


these are done in the same way as the faces on the old book pages; oil pastel and watercolors...


all of the shading on 'waving man' was done with quinacridone gold and paynes grey from my daniel smith set.


a little stitching... i'm headed out of town tomorrow, and my plan is to take the flags with me and leave them here and there. they're hanging in various trees now, awaiting their true mission...

thanks to kelly, i found out about david choe's new book, previewed here. and on amazon, here.

* * *

have you seen stevie ray play a double necked guitar with his brother, jimmy?



now THAT's smile making!!

thank you everyone for your nice words about the creek people! i'm taking my computer with me, so i might be around!

XO