First Wood Cut

This is the first wood cut I've done and while it's taken me much longer to do than a lino cut, I like the results.

Wood is difficult because it can split or splinter when you're trying to cut details.  You have to be careful of the grain of the wood and know how to avoid all the wood carving pitfalls.  I did have a couple of small split-outs with this but they aren't so obvious and perhaps they even attest to the fact that this is indeed a hand carving.

Since I ran this test print, I did go back and do some tweaking.  Hopefully it's now ready for a print run.  After I make all I want, I'll break or burn the carving to prevent any more from being printed.

Sorry for all the space around the actual print.  I always leave a border to write the print #, my signature, etc. and in this case, the print was done on white paper. 

The tweaking I did consisted of deepening the line across the bottom so it would show up white in the print.  Hope it was enough.

Slight Change of Direction - Wood and Lino Cuts

As usual, when I'm in Creative Mode, I don't do a lot of blog posting!  And I've been doing more carving so have been trying both wood and lino prints.

My favorites have been the cows and only test prints have been made of all the 'cuts'.  When I have them all the way I want, I'll do limited edition prints all printed by hand.

Here are a few of the ones I've test-printed so far:

I'm working on another Beltie as well as another Highland cow.  Some I tried were way above my pay grade but I'm gradually growing into more detailed work. 

All of the above are lino cuts but I do have a couple of wood cuts in the works.  Hope to finish and post them soon!

Wonder what it is about knives that is so attractive to me?  Mu Waaaa Haaa Haaa!

More New Paintings!!!!

As I said in my last post, I've been very busy painting in the last few months.  Mostly I've been experimenting with professional poster colors, a form of gouache with larger pigment particles, but I've also painted in both oil and acrylic.

My husband is the best model I have for paintings with figures as he's always around!  The following acrylic painting was done when I photographed him cultivating the garden looking like a typical farmer around here!  The old cultivator is great because it doesn't take gas or need much maintenance like the tiller or tractor and it just looks cool, doesn't it?

This is a favorite painting & each of the grandchildren said they wanted it.  Guess I'll have to have prints made for each of them!

The following are oil paintings with the first two now being shown in a juried exhibition near Chapel Hill, NC at Galloway Ridge.  This exhibition will end toward the middle of July so if you're near there, stop in and take a look at all the wonderful paintings and photos.

The next one is one I submitted for the Galloway exhibition but it didn't make it in.  It was one I struggled with as all the dots drove me a little over the edge!  My daughter says it reminds her of resting after working in the fields during the time of slavery.  That wasn't my intention for this painting at all .  Most of my art is meant to provoke peace and rest and I titled this painting "Resting in the Light".  Of course it will invoke various and different feelings in each viewer which is the reason for art in the first place.  I'd be interested to know what you think of it!

And there are more paintings but I think I'll save them for another day!  lol

Again, I want to remind you of the MCC CACE/BRUSH RODEO ASSOCIATION WESTERN ART SHOW, Brush, Colorado.

Paint or Post?

I guess you can tell I'm not exactly ambidextrous as I can't seem to paint and keep up my blog at the same time!

As you can tell from the amount of time between posts though, I have been painting!  And to bring you a bit up-to-date, I want to share the results of the ShinHan Poster Color lightfast test I did when I received the paints back in January.

You all know what a stickler I am for quality art supplies so I was very pleased when the unofficial test revealed very good lightfastness for most of the colors in the set I bought.  I knew from the pigment numbers that some of the reds and pinks were rather fugitive but there were some that held up perfectly so I'll just not use the ones which fade.

Here are a few of the paintings done with the poster color.

I've also been working in oil and will post photos of those paintings in a future blog post.

I want to mention that I've been juried into the MCC CACE/BRUSH RODEO ASSOCIATION WESTERN ART SHOW, Brush, Colorado.  The show runs from now until July 4th, 2019.   If there are any readers in the area, be sure to stop in as some fabulous artists are exhibiting!

Abstracted and Distracted!

Well, it's been a while again but I have been painting.  Most of it has been Christmas Cards for a forum I belong to so can't show those until they've been received by the recipients, of course.

I've also been working on a request from my dear daughter that was so totally out of my league that I felt I should ask her to get another artist!

Seriously, she has just finished remodeling her living room, kitchen, entry and bathrooms and wanted an abstract painting for the living room - a large abstract painting!

If you've paid any attention to my blog and the paintings I've posted, you know that most are relatively small paintings and about as far from abstract as you can get.  Plus, my daughter and I are pretty far apart when it comes to liking certain things.

For instance, I've never felt that she really liked any of the art I've done so was really surprised that she asked me to do a painting for her in the first place.  Then I was totally surprised when she said she loved what I'd done.

Thank God - literally - as I'd really prayed for guidance in the execution of the painting!

Anyway, here it is - not my usual style at all so hope you like it (my ever diplomatic DH said it 'grows on you').  It may not match her sofa but I do think it will look good in her living room!

It's 3feet by 2 feet, acrylic on cradled panels.

abstract

Hope to post more in the coming weeks but you know how crazy it always gets around the holidays!

New Paintings

I've been painting up a storm lately, actually painting through two storms (Florence and Michael) when I was able, lol. 

It seems I'm either inspired to paint or not and here lately, I've been inspired.  These next three paintings were all done in oils - either alkyd oil or water soluble oil.  I like both of them and use either depending on the situation :  alkyd oil if I need fast drying or water soluble oil if I want to clean up without harsh solvents.

Anyway, here are some paintings I've recently finished:

 The calf above was painted with alkyd oils and is my first attempt at a cow, except a sort of cartoonish dairy cow I did some time ago.  This is 6x8 inches on an AlumaCorp panel.  It's prepped as I described in an earlier post and I'm thinking of adding some kind of background.

The horse was also painted on a 6x8" AlumaCorp panel but I added gesso before starting the painting to help reduce the glare.  I was amazed that even with a couple of coats of gesso, the panel still had a lovely glow.  This painting was done with water soluble oil and may look a bit splotchy as it isn't dry yet.

 This last painting was done for a challenge in a painting forum I belong to.  The challenge was to paint leaves.  Most everyone is doing fall leaves but oranges and bright yellows aren't my favorite colors so I chose this apple on a tree.  This was also somewhat of an experiment to try Julie Ford Oliver's fracturing technique.

Let's just say that a Julie Ford Oliver I'm not!  But there are aspects that I like - several leaf shapes showed up by accident and that was certainly a plus.

I have more paintings waiting to be painted so hope to see you back here again soon.

Modern Fox

I finally finished the modern fox I was carving in wood.  Or maybe I just stopped working on it!  Actually, the biggest time spent working on it was sanding.  This style sort of demanded that the finish be smooth instead of letting the carving marks show.

I put a 'barely there' finish on it that I often use for wooden frames.  This consists of half odorless thinner, half linseed oil and a dab of oil paint in the color I wanted.  In this case, it was a tiny amount of burnt sienna with the tiniest dab of bright red.  I wanted this mixture to just tint the wood instead of it being an opaque, totally covering finish.  With this finish, the wood grain shows through which I thought suited this carving.

Wood carving is good for a change of pace that helps charge the artistic atoms!  It uses a different part of the brain and it's sometimes a struggle to switch from 2-D thinking to 3-D but I think this 3-D 'practice' helps me paint better 2-D images.

I may not ever be a great wood carver but I enjoy it; it's a great stress reliever in a different way from painting and helps keep me off the streets!  lol