Material Lessons

We learn by doing. And it takes time with the materials on your hands to understand the best way you work. Here are some of the material techniques I've learned. These are specifically for paper painting, although they may apply to the faces a bit.

Tall Bottles:
I have a bunch of 8oz plastic squeeze bottles. They are filled with paints and mediums that come from unwieldy jars. I label them, although sometimes that's not enough like when I grabbed white gesso thinking it was matte medium. Surprise!

I work pretty fast, and I find the idea of putting down my paint brush, using both hands to open a jar, and then somehow transferring that jar's insides to a palette really cumbersome. (Also messy.) Doing the squeeze bottle transfer every couple of weeks (or months) makes life a lot easier. Sometimes the tips get clogged, but it's worth the cleaning time for the time spent not frustrated about jars.

 Funnel:
For getting mediums/paints from jars into tall bottles, it's good to have one. At first you'll think, "Oh no. My aim is just fine." If you find yourself thinking that,  at least allow yourself a piece of plastic under your aim. I'll report back on how important it is to have one funnel for clear mediums (matte medium, self level gel, etc) and one for dark colors (like black gesso.) Also, when pouring through that funnel, work in small batches. That is unless you are really really good at translating funnel volume to squeeze bottle volume. I, as it turns out, am not.

Used Up Paint Bottles:
I paint with two types of soft bodied paint: expensive Golden paints and much less expensive craft paints. While I was bemoaning the fact I hadn't purchased more 2oz squeeze bottles at Dick Blick to make glazes, I realized I had a bunch of bottles all ready at my disposal. I just found my craft 2oz paint bottles that were almost empty and added matte medium (or white gesso that time I wasn't paying attention) and suddenly I have access to all those glazes!

Image Note: I put a G on the tops and bottoms of paints I've turned into glazes. The colors inside never match the color that has been stained onto the plastic. I always forget this simple fact.

A Good Day

When you go into the studio for a day of art and your work space *starts* like this, you know you're in for a good day.

Image note: No I did not have beer for breakfast. 

Tuesday Night Trivia (Not Really)

Tonight before knocking all the spare eyes and wings I had carefully organized into a tidy and meaningful stack, I pulled out some of the layered pieces I was working on last week. This week I didn't touch them at all, and it was nice to see them with fresh eyes. The layers felt satisfying in a way I couldn't perceive when I was looking at them day after day. It inspired me to stay up too late and add another level of gel to four of them. It also reminded me that if I had actually been attending to them every day, they would be finished by now. An important lesson: If you do nothing, you make no progress. Hardly anything is waaaaaay more than nothing.

Lesson acknowledged universe. Acknowledged.

Another fun piece of art learning trivia: One of my pieces of material is rusting under the medium. Rusting might not be the correct chemical term but something akin to that process. At first I noticed a few spots at the edges but I thought there might be a chance I was making it up. No indeed good people. No indeed. And isn't it a good thing I used large swaths of this material in a body, a head and a beak of three separate projects. They are all going to turn a strange translucent green, which, lets be honest, wasn't a part of my original color scheme.

Another lesson learned: If you use recycled materials, you'll either need to test how they'll react to chemicals (in this case self leveling gel) or risk that they will once you've started your piece.

Image Note: This is clearly the trouble piece.

Side Note: What the Heck Golden Reg. Gel?!

Just a couple of days ago I was singing the drying-clear praises of Golden's Matte Medium. Well, it's a different story for the Regular Gel. Booooooooo. See the above smudges? That is the Gel Medium fully dried.

I need to do a dry test to see which of the products dry clear and which do not. And I have to remind myself that even though I've been waiting for layers on this particular project to dry over a week that these owls are all in the name of education and the weird smudging, while yes, means that it's a bit ruined, doesn't mean that the experiment has been ruined.

But seriously, booooooooooooooo.

Picture Note: Boooooooooooooooooo.

Horizontal Storage Space

For the time being, I have limited my personal art time to two-dimensional art. But using the word limited is probably a bit inaccurate. In the past few weeks I have found that I can embed almost anything into my collage work and now I have to be careful about filling up my craft coffers with a bunch of material I just got rid of for the sake of focusing on two- dimensional art.

The problem I'm facing however, is that because I have a lot of pieces in progress right now, I'm not painting. I do about 20 minutes of work and think, "Ah these have to dry and I've done collage today. Check!"

Not so fast Artist-Wanna-Be-Me. Just because I've touched an acrylic medium doesn't mean I've improved my ability to draw a cheek bone. Or know how to mix colors any better. On the contrary. I'm figuring out some technical issues but not the bigger deeper issues that allow you to become a better artist.

The solution? Clean up after myself. (Booooooooo.) These collage pieces take hours to dry over various layers. While they are drying, I leave them scattered across my desk and the supplies I use equally scattered. All of this means that if I have 10 minutes to kill, I can't just come into my studio and practice drawing....not without moving a lot of crap around...probably about 10 minutes of crap removal.

I know myself pretty well, and I need to use that knowledge to create systems that give me the best chance possible to practice painting and drawing. That will probably include a night clean up of my work space. Lame? Yes, it feels totally lame. But I'm going to try it for the rest of this week and see how it feels. It means that when I leave my studio for the day, I need to have access to my painting surface.

Image Note: A desk is not long term or short term storage. You would never know I believe that by looking at this.

Finding The Line

(And yes, I'm talking about an actual line. In this case slightly dotted.)

I find acrylic mediums amazing. You can pile loads of matte medium and then it just dries clear. Clear! Like nothing was there in the first place.

Example, on the right side of the figures in the left image, little piles of matte medium. Image on the right? Vanished!

But back to the real point here: Line. I'm always looking for ways to add lines to my pieces. Sharpies, while come in thin points, tend to bleed (waterproof my ass) and also change to a purplish color. If I wanted purple in my pieces, I'd use a purple pen. So obviously I'm venting some of my love hate (hate) relationship with those damn sharpies.

So a few days ago I thought, "I have black stuff around my studio." And I began to pull out anything that could potentially make a line. Cut up black paper. Trimmed ribbon. And thread. The heavy thread worked the best. However, I don't know how well my hands would fair between the close cutting and then the tweezer lifts to the piece. It's a bit of a fight, but oh my gosh the outcome looks so great! I can't help myself, I'm going to have to try it again. (Also, if a piece of artwork involved tweezers in any form, the price should go up. This is why tiny pieces can be expensive. Because, seriously, TWEEZERS.)

Self Leveling Gel

It can take awhile to fully implement any new technique. Some are fast, like everything in Anne Bagby's DVDS. Those techniques fit in with what I was already doing. Figuring out how to use true layers and then do it through self level gel (SLG), isn't quite so intuitive. I've tried new styles. I've tried adding more lines and new textures I'd normally avoided (like fabric), and now I can tell I'm looping back around to figuring out how to add it (and additional collage elements) to my cupcake owls. Oooooh the learning curves and decision making curves are a constant tripping hazard.

However, in all of this creative confusion, I am learning a few things about SLG.

What I'm learned (or am learning):

1. Bottle Approach
I currently squeeze the self leveling gel out of a squeeze bottle. This works great. I can create a border and then fill it in. I then run a credit card back and forth over it like I'm spreading frosting.

However, getting it into that particular squeeze bottle was a DISASTER including probably losing a half of cup to spillage that I couldn't scoop up. (And there was a lot of scooping up in this process.) Once it's in the bottle it's fantastic. But because that process is so difficult, once this bottle runs out, I may just try getting it out of the jar with a credit card and going directly onto my surface. TBD.

2. Spreading
If you're using the squeeze bottle method and you have a frame of SLG around your border, start with your edges. Scrape out to the edge to make sure you've got it all the way out. Then begins working left to right or top to bottom. I find it really easy to add more SLG to the center of a piece where maybe it's a little thin. The edges I find a bit more tricky so if the first thing I do is make sure they are set, I can move on.

3. Layering
This may not be true for other artists but by God it is true for me. I can layer SLG and then place something down on top of it so that the two (element and SLG) can dry together. Except in the case of embedding glitter, this is the wrong approach for me. I should pour a layer of SLG, allow it to dry, and then add my element with matte medium or gel medium. Once the element is dry, then do another SLG pour.

Now that this third truth is in writing, maybe I'll remember it.

Image: This is self leveling gel out of the squeeze bottle before I've moved it around. Notice how blue it is. That's a bit because I'm bad at color correction, but also it's because many of these mediums start with a tint of blue and then dry clear. 

Sketch Practice

Last night I sat at my local coffee shop and sort of stared out into the traffic beyond the window. I was thinking about art and my current frustrations. And then I did something I rarely do in public. I drew. I had my black and white photocopies of faces, and I pulled them out and began sketching with the ballpoint pen on hand. Very quickly I began to feel better. I didn't have any deep insights into what the hell I'm doing with myself or my art. There was nothing profound happening, but sometimes going through the motions isn't just what we can muster, it's also the solution.

In art, as in life probably (damn), sometimes you don't have to have each and every step mapped out before you move. (Although we all would like to.)  Sometimes you know only the step directly in front of you. Sometimes the solution to confusion about your art, is to pull out your crappy photocopies and draw some crappy (but less crappy than before) sketches. And it reminds you that the process is a huge part of what you're enjoying even when you have no idea about any kind of product.

Above: Top left is a sketch I did back in the summer. The other three are yesterday's. The latter three may not look a whole lot different, but they felt very (very) different to draw. They felt better, and that in itself is incentive to keep going.

Art Walls

Today was a frustrating art day. Or maybe an everything day. Or maybe just an art day.

The layered pieces take so long it feels like watching the creative process in slow motion. It's hard to build on knowledge because it takes so long for each layer to dry. (About a day.) One of the things I love about art is that it's dynamic, and nothing about the layering in this approach is dynamic.

I still like starting with the fabric background, but I'm having terrible trouble adding color to the line drawings. Color is so hit or miss for me. Because the layering does take so long I need to have a more complete picture before I start including color. That's what I'm attempting from a pattern standpoint in the workspace picture above but I need to figure out how to plan color ahead of time as well.

All and all, I will try and give it another few weeks to decide if I keep going down this path. Cloudy days are not days to decide direction.

The faces portion of the art was equally frustrating, but it's my own fault for trying to use a face from a magazine. Soft lighting makes everything from magazines useless. They strip away the features that give a face shape. Lesson learned. (And side lesson: I need to start collecting my own face images. The introvert inside me shudders.)

Avenues of Focus

Today was the first day since the start of the show run where I feel truly excited about art again. Apparently, focus takes a little getting back into.

I'm working along two avenues: Small layering pieces and faces. The layering pieces are small and have more elements of hand drawn and whimsy. The faces are larger and acrylic. I'm not sure where either are going yet, but it's still early. The important thing at this point is to keep experimenting with each. To see where it takes me.

A few things I'm running into for the smaller pieces:
-Black lines bleed. This is why I loved the wax. Pen lines don't bleed in wax. With the acrylic mediums they bleed to varying degrees, and it's totally frustrating. Even sharpie bleeds. Some of the inks turn slightly purple in color. I've found that gel pens on paper and then into acrylic have decent staying power. Sharpie on clear sticker does pretty well too. I bought an acrylic pen tonight, and we'll see how unruly that it.

-Photocopies. I photocopied some line drawings tonight at FedEx, and they are in varying stages of acrylic at this point. I forgot to photocopy the *one* that I actually wanted to make into a project, and it's taking all of my self control to not glue it down. Luckily I have a bleeding turtle (see image) to remind me of the repercussions. At times I think the toner copies are bleeding, but it's my paranoia.

-I put down a layer of self leveling gel (my new best friend) and then just sort of floated a pen and ink drawing down on top of it. I think it worked pretty successfully. I won't be able to tell fully until it's completely dry.

Clearing Out the Final Scraps

Layer practice in progress

Most of today was spent cleaning out the art studio. I'm still not to a wholly functioning studio, but I am three trash bags filled with ribbon, fabric, and cookie cutters closer. Oh how we hold on to the useless.

My husband made a really helpful suggestion: He told me to choose an art form. It didn't matter what it was and that I was allowed to change my mind later on, but that I should choose something. Choose a path. He's been telling me this for years, but for some reason it clicked in a new way. Maybe it was his giving me permission to change my mind later on that was the freeing bit. I started to think about my work space and all the things in it that have nothing to do with 2D visual art. I thought of my Mom's studio and how there is a sense of calm inside its walls. How she doesn't fill it with random projects here and there. She fills it with the art she's working on and the things that inspire that art.

I want my studio to be representative of where I'm focused. And for right now for an undisclosed amount of time, it's going to be painting.

This narrowing still leaves a lot open for collection, and I still do have too much fabric. But it's a start.

Finding Focus

I started craft amor because I wanted a place to capture all the different projects I was working on. I've always had trouble focusing on a particular type of art. I use the word "trouble" but I don't think there is anything wrong with this. Creativity is a fun and strange beast, and I my unofficial philosophy for a long time has been, "I want to do it all."

The I want to do it all philosophy has been wonderful from a creativity standpoint but occasionally does cause me life anxiety.  When I look out into my future I know on some level I can only get so good with such a broad strokes. Doing it all means never getting really good at one thing. But even knowing that, I still couldn't help but think, "What if" and then run off in whatever direction that particular idea took me. I didn't want to have to give that up. It's just too fun.

But then something recently in life happened and the result has been surprising.

Sarah

Sarah.

I like to name my pieces. Even the little owls often have names.

With Sarah, she isn't perfect but she's an excellent start to a style I'm exploring. It's a mix of papermaking, collage, and faces. I have a long way from being where I want to be, but like I said. A solid start.

And now that I've finished the first one, I need to review a few DVDs to strengthen my technique. Clearly I'm far off from being a great portrait artist. But through constant practice, I can feel myself getting better. (yay!)

DVDs I need to review:
Jean Pederson's Wet Glazing:
Jean Pederson is a watercolor artist but she approaches the face like I'd like to with a series of washes. Also it's be good for me to see her draw a face.

Anne Bagby's The Grunge Book
Anne Bagby's third DVD is very different from her previous two. The third one isn't technique focused but rather project focused. But one things I really like about it is you see her draw a complete face. We edited very little out of the process for people who really wanted to see her put down every line. I'm ready to watch her put down every line. Drawing can feel like magic, but someone had to sculpt that face. With Anne Bagby, I can see her actually do it.

Lessons to Learn:
I should start with larger pieces of hair for the under layer. Large swaths read better.

I also need to glue down the bottom ones and work up. It feels better to have the top layers overlapping the bottom layers. That wasn't painfully clear until part way through the process.

Faces

I'm working on faces, and so far I've been trying to do at least 15 minutes a day (a la Anne Bagby.) I'm not yet where I want to be but oh how you can see progress if you work consistently.

Yes, I have a long ways to go, but it's fun to start playing with facial planes (so much learning to do) and pattern. I'm trying to incorporate fun elements into the more potentially frustrating elements. For example, I really need to keep working on the drawing and the painting of the face. That is fun but I have to fight through my own emotions about my current ability.

Pattern on the other hand is completely fun. There is no judgment. If I mess up I don't take it personally or as a verdict on my potential. So as I move forward with faces I'm trying to do both.

This is headband girl. I haven't named her yet beyond that. I'm glad that I started to try and add depth to her face instead of a flat face. This is one of those parts that really forces me through my own anxieties about learning to paint. As with most of the art I do, it's all in the value range of 1-4, but that is something that will get easier as I become more confident.

Bouquet Attempt 1

I'm working on learning to paint three main themes: Owls, portraits, and flowers.

The learning curve on all of them is pretty steep, but I'm slowly crawling my way up it.

I ended up destroying this painting. I really liked the image I have above the jump. Unfortunately, I knew it wasn't finished if it had no background. I liked the shape of the bouquet. I learned to put down greens first in former projects and I felt like the greens with red flowers was a success. Darn the background.

Glazing

Golden recently discontinued it's glazing line.

"What glazing line?" is what you might be asking. Exactly. And you're not alone.  I didn't know about Glazing until Anne Bagby's first DVD, Paper, Pattern & Glazing. Unless I was at a fine art store, no one I talked to at hobby stores (even the ones selling Golden products) had ever heard of glazing liquids.

But glazing liquids are amazing! And as I get to know my own process of working more and more, I've decided that I want to use the handy chart Golden supplied (http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/color/glazes/glaze.php) and make some of my own. Anne Bagby uses Aslphaltum. It's a warm glaze.

I might also try Slate, Sea Foam Green, and Yellow Ochre. Or I might take already transparent colors that I love and mix up a bottle of them with a bit more transparency.

Weekend Lessons

This series will help me track what I'm learning and where I want to direct those lessons next.

Jane Davies DVD is out in just a few short weeks (you can PreOrder it right now and save $5)

Jane Davies does some neat things with stamps, and it's a good reminder for me to pull mine out and get creative.

I know I have a mental block against using stamps with acrylic paint. Stamps are expensive. They need to be cleaned immediately after use. It feels like I'm wasting paint when I use them. Small ones require a lot of STAMPING.

But in light of all of these reasons to be hesitant, I've been holding onto stamps for 10 years now and have never used them in card making. I'm not going to ruin them from a higher purpose. Time to get them dirty and see what they can do. (Note to self: Stop being so precious about your art tools!)

Jane Davies' Scribble Collage

One of the best parts of my job at Creative Catalyst Productions is meeting working artists. Art doesn't just happen. A beautiful piece is the result of hundreds and hundreds of hours of thought and work. Meeting the brains and passion behind that hard work is inspiring each and every time.

And for that reason there is a special place in my heart when we release a new DVD. We take months on our projects. We aren't a bring-them-in-spit-them-out operation. We take months before we shoot getting to know the artist. We spend an intense few days shooting the video and then we spend months putting the project together in post production. It's a labor of love. And it's so exciting to be able to share that love with fellow artists.

So welcome to the world Jane Davies', Scribble Collage with Hand-Painted Paper. We cannot wait for what you have to share!

Robin the Felt Bird

Besides the really great, positive working environment, my new part time job comes with a serious perk: Industrial toilet paper rolls. I am a fan of the regular house hold type of toilet paper roll. And eventually, someday, when I get my act together, this blog may see some of the creations based on the mighty little roll. But what we also might start seeing here are the creations based on the mighty giant roll. It's the secret inside every public highway restroom ever. And I have a key!

Side note: My husband really likes this bird. Some day he's going to wake up and see a whole row of them below his side of the bed looking up at him. Werner Herzog would not be impressed.

Also, maybe we've just landed in our version of the urban chicken.

Latest Blog over at Creative Catalyst: Polly Hammett

Here's my most recent post over at Creative Catalyst Production's blog:  Thumbnail to Final Collage: Lessons from Polly Hammett's DVD.

I've spent the last few weeks working through Polly Hammett's DVD, Design with the Figure. I love figures but I don't really paint them. I also don't use watercolor. That said, I learn so much from Hammett's DVD workshop that I know I will refer to it again and again. Good artists have a lot to teach no matter if their style is different than ours. Surprising? OK so not really.