Art Supply Junkie

Alcohol Inks On Yupo - 5x7"

I said in my last post that I was fickle when it came to art media but I think it's more that I'm an art supply junkie.  The truth be told, I like experimenting with various arts and crafts supplies and yesterday I finally got around to playing with the alcohol inks.

It was the perfect day for it as we've been pretty much iced in since last Friday as the so-called big storm hit us before making it's way further north and east.  Since we knew the storm was coming, we went out on Thursday and I was able to buy some Adirondack inks at Michael's.  Fortunately, my DH & I both had a coupon and I still had money left on the gift card the grandchildren gave me for Christmas.  I still didn't get all the colors I wanted but got enough to play with and I also had the homemade inks from last week.  I didn't use them much in this painting but they seemed to work as well as the purchased inks.

Not great by any means but I had expected it to be a whole lot worse.  These inks are somewhat like watercolor in that they have a mind of their own plus you rarely do well the first time out of the gate.  It didn't help that the Adirondack inks were marked with esoteric names like "Stream", "Wild Plum", "Citrus" and looked different on Yupo than they looked on either the label or in the bottle.  I need to make a color chart so I'll know what's what!

This is my first alcohol painting and I'm fairly pleased with it.  Can I see room for improvement?  Definitely! But I hope to learn how these inks work by practicing and hopefully a masterpiece will eventually emerge!

A Bit of Color in the Rain

Yep, it's raining here again.  It started yesterday and we've gotten almost 3 inches so far with it supposed to continue into Wednesday according to the weatherman/person.  It's already been an unusually rainy fall so this rain only contributes to the drab landscape around us.

One bright spot is our Confederate Rose bushes though.  I believe they're actually hibiscus and are supposed to be a little more tropical in nature than our climate allows but every few years we actually have flowers before the frost gets the buds.  This is one of those years.

The Confederate Rose flower is an oddity as it starts off as a deep pink bud, opens to a pure white flower, then gradually gets more and more of that deep pink color as the flower ages.

I've tried to take progressive photos of one of the blooms but our weather has been less than cooperative!

First, the bud -

This one was already beginning to open so isn't as deep in color as it can be.  After the bud opens it becomes a white flower - again, I didn't catch this one in the pure white stage and you can see a trace of pink along the edges of the petals.

I ran out during a bit of lull in the rain and photographed the bloom in the pink stage -

Right before the bloom falls off, it turns a deep, almost burgundy red.  Unfortunately with all the rain, I missed that stage also.

I just find these flowers fascinating and when they are in top form, they're very beautiful right up until the time they fall off the bush.  Not only that, but because they bloom so late in the season, they offer a cheery pop of color at a very dreary time.

Another Acrylic Painting

"Alliums" Acrylic on Canvas Hardboard

 

 

You might be justified in thinking that I really don't hate acrylic paint as much as I say I do but I'm just trying to finish up several paintings I started when first getting the paint and which I left to languish when I got too frustrated with them.  Some paintings have been put away for years!

In this case, I'd wanted to try the texture medium (which is an acrylic medium) and figured acrylic paint would be the most compatible with it.

While acrylic paint isn't my favorite medium to paint with, I have to say that I really like the texture medium and will probably use it under my gouache or oil paintings in future projects.  The medium gives a fun look to a painting but does have some little quirks when working with it.

First of all, it's really hard on your brushes.  I used an old round stencil brush to apply the medium and if I'd thought about it, I probably would have mixed my paint into the medium to save time and other brushes.  But, I kept adjusting colors in this painting so would have had to use regular paint brushes anyway.  I was doing some good thinking though as I used craft brushes from WalMart instead of my good, more expensive ones. 

Secondly, it's hard to get paint down into those valleys in the texture.  Again, mixing a colored texture to begin with would have gone a long way in helping with that.

And thirdly, you have to really plan ahead to use it as when it's dried and set up, it's there for the long term!  I had an area on another painting where it was used that I wanted to change and even intense sanding didn't remove it easily.  I really think you could call this stuff archival without any qualms at all!  It's sure not going anywhere at least!

Even though this is one of those paintings that felt like giving birth during the production of it, I think I like the results.  I hope you do too.

Narcissus Flowers in Water Soluble Oil

Although I haven't done any more to it, there was some paint leftover from the Red Angus cow that I wanted to use but didn't want to paint anymore on the cow.  Did you get that?  lol  In short, I was bored with the bull but didn't want to waste paint!

I had a photo of these narcissus so decide to see if I could paint them.  This is still the water soluble oil paint but on a 6 x 6 inch canvas panel.  It came out a little better than the cow, or at least I thought so.  Maybe I should just stick to painting flowers in the oils or maybe I should just practice painting animals!

An Oldie and a New Find

 This is a painting I did in oils probably 25 years ago.  I thought it was finished then although I wasn't quite satisfied with it.  Now I can see that it isn't even close to being finished and I plan to work more on it in the coming days and weeks.  I'm trying to straighten up my studio and keep finding these old paintings which serve as a benchmark to show how far I've come!

The photo on the left shows some shaggy asters which are flowers we planted for the first time this year.  We have tons of the little white and purple fall asters growing wild all over our farm but this variety is different and I'm really pleased with them.

I intend to modify the painting above to incorporate the look of the these pretty asters but it won't get done or even started for quite a while.  Two of my sisters are coming for a visit plus I'm supposed to do a pastel demonstration at the Artestry Hideaway gallery in Beaufort, NC August 23rd so I'm in something of a time crunch right now.  That's also why I'm not posting as much here on my blog as I'd like to so please bear with me.

On another note, Sue Clinker from the PencilPix blog blogged about Shag Dancing with a link to a video of some teenagers shagging in a contest.  The kids were really good but the young man was outstanding with his moves.  Sue made the comment that the girl let the boy shine.  I'm not so sure she let him - it seems that with shagging (oh, my! let me amend that to read shag dancing!), the men are usually better at it than the women.  I think it has something to do with the way the dance seems to be performed with a "loose connection" from the waist down and men seem so good at that.  Anyway, Sue got me real nostalgic even though I have two left feet and I spent quite a bit of time looking at various shag dancing videos.  Below is a link to one of a mother and son dancing together that won my heart. And, if you look to the side of the screen, you'll see other videos that may help you understand shag dancing just a little better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IW6r_tJe78