Create this step-by-step torn paper monoprint during the Monoprint Makeover class at Lucy’s Art Lab . I’ll show you how to print many layers of colour on an 8×10 gel plate.
And drop by my studio on Sept 22 or 23 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. I’m part of the Tweed and Area Studio Tour. If your up for a great drive in the country, there’s lots of interesting art to see this weekend. Check out the tour here.
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Join me during Downtown Belleville’s Art Walk on June 7 from 4 to 7 p.m. Artists everywhere!! Great restaurants and gallery openings. I’ll be at Reiki on Wheels demonstrating monoprinting.
My upcoming solo show at the Parrott Art Gallery in Belleville, Ontario next month. Come visit on opening night. And if you can’t make it on Dec. 7, the show runs until Dec. 28. Hope you’ll find a chance to visit.
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I have a couple of new workshops coming up in October.
Check out the Workshops page above.
Seriously, I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I signed up for Leslie Saeta’s 30 paintings in 30 days. I’ll get into the study early every morning during September and paint a small image to upload. And I’ll upload a week’s worth of images only once a week.
I’ve been working on a large series of landscapes for an upcoming solo exhibition and thought I’d use this daily challenge to create some smaller, micro landscapes and still lifes where only one object appears in the painting.
The emphasis will be on values, color contrast and texture. You can check out the paintings on the 30/30 page at the top of the website.
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Sometimes I just like to rub my hands over a painting to feel the bumps and lumps and grit of the acrylic texture. It makes me happy; it makes the surface mine; it shows my process.
The painting above is a small, 12×12″ canvas with lots of texture. I wanted to create a landscape minimal elements but with the look and feel of nature. The sky was painted; the mid ground forms were collaged using acrylic skins (a future blog post) and the foreground was created with fiber paste.
I spread Golden’s fiber paste over the bottom half of the canvas; let it dry, then painted the absorbent surface. With a drybrush of blue on top of the painted texture, there’s subtle tonal and value shifts and a more pronounced textured look.
The videos below show my process of working with fiber paste. The videos are only a few seconds long just so you get a feel for the application of the medium.
Unlike the painting above, where I applied the paste directly to the canvas, this series of videos shows me creating a fiber skin that I will collage onto a future painting.
As the video shows, I use acetate sheets for the process.
A cute product shot!
Applying the paste to the acetate sheet. Plastics sheets and bags will also work for this. And if you spread out the paste evenly and smoothly you can create something that looks like a sheet of rough watercolor paper. By the way, fiber paste is made with mineral fibers rather than paper or material fibers. It makes the medium more archival.
Odd little photo, but it shows me using a razor blade scraper to lift the dried fiber paste off the acetate sheet. You need to let the freshly applied paste dry overnight before removing from the acetate.
This is a three minute video that shows ripped and torn pieces of dried fiber paste being collaged to the painting surface. And you’ll notice I’m demonstrating upside down. That’s a skill!! I use soft gel medium to apply the fiber sections. Any of the gels can be used as a glue for collaging. The heavier the gel viscosity, the heavier the collage material can be. Notice I use a piece of waxed paper to press down on the glued fiber. By placing a clean piece of waxed paper each time over the fiber surface, and by pressing firmly and evenly without moving the waxed paper, you prevent gel medium from overlapping the fiber paste. If gel medium does cover the paste in sections, those sections won’t be as absorbent as the uncovered fiber paste. I wiped up excess gel with a paper towel.
Once the gel has dried and the fiber paste piece is firmly glued, paint the surface. You can also mix paint with the wet fiber paste before spreading and drying the paste. Heavy body or liquid paints can be used.
In this video, I drybrush blue paint over the surface creating a look similar to the one in the painting at the top of this post. The paint clings to the high spots of the texture creating depth and often contrast and vibrancy.
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Finally having a new studio built on my property. I’m moving out of the small loft above the garage that I’ve worked in for eight years and into a 20×30 foot space so I can create larger paintings, have a designated spot for videos and add a printmaking work station…and maybe teach a few classes.
This video is a time lapse of the construction to date. Its’ a five minute video showing the first five days of construction. There’ll be a cathedral ceiling with skylights; horizontal windows to allow for more usable wall space; in-floor heatting for toasty toes and a garage door with roll-down screen at the front to allow north light in during spring, summer and fall.
I’ve worked in damp basements, tiny lofts, extra bedrooms, industrial rental units but this is the first time I’ve owned a studio designed to fit my needs. Getting excited to move in.
Video is courtesy Quinte Home Solutions the design/build contractors.
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In the summer, I move my studio to the garage, open up the large garage doors and try to paint what I see outside those doors.
This summer I’ve mostly been working in oils with cold wax medium creating small 8 x 10 field studies that I’ll later turn into larger studio paintings. Those field studies are small sections of the landscape as seen from my garage!
Today, I moved a little further down the driveway to create with a medium I haven’t used recently. During this hot, humid summer, my printmaking paper would misbehave. I use the paper dry so the weather made the paper damp and that forced the paper to bend and curl at will. Not easy to keep a print registered as you add multiple layers to the design.
But today it’s cool and the air is dry and I brought out my GelliArts printmaking plate, my registration board and my Golden Open Acrylics. As I mentioned, the scene is a view from the end of my driveway. I simply sketched a few versions of how I wanted the landscape to appear then went back to the garage to to create the monoprint.
I used the 6″ x 6″ GelliArts plate to create this design and the following Golden Open Acrylics – Titanium White, Indian Yellow Hue, Manganese Blue and Light Ultramarine Blue. And I used lots, and lots of low-tack painters tape to protect areas while I added color. I started with an overall yellow background applied to the plate with a brayer. Every other color was added with a paintbrush. The initial treeline color was the light ultramarine straight out of the tube. The rest of the colors were mixes of yellow, manganese blue and white. I finished the piece in almost 12 color layers.
Now that the weather has cooled a bit (and temporarily it appears) I have a few more sketches ready to go. This one is called “Someday Soon”; 6″ x 6″, matted to 12″ x 12″.
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