Old telephone

[Terri]

After commenting in another thread about how I don't like using a paint brush - here's my first (and likely only) attempt with using a paint brush!

I live in a bungalow built in 1950, and it still has charming features from those long-ago days, like a little pass-through door in the kitchen where the milkman could leave stuff, and also a telephone niche in the hallway.

I thought about painting a phone from that era into the niche, so this is from that effort. It's in my Canson XL mixed media sketchbook, 11x14". I thought I'd help the thin paper accept acrylic paint if I put down a layer of gesso first. All that did was wrinkle the damn page and make the painting harder. It also yellowed a bit.

I used Golden Open acrylics - I like them because they are slow-drying, which feels right to me because I'm exceedingly slow.

Here are the sketches and a wip image or two. I'm okay with how it turned out, but I don't think I'll be painting it into the niche. Too much work and I'm too unsure of myself.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Enyaw]

Beautiful .. love the blues ... love the old stuff .. it holds so many memories.

 

[Triduana]

I love this! I love the bold graphic style of it. I think you should do more!

 

[Joy]

Love, love, love it! From the subject, to the shine and textures, it is wonderful. Puh-lease consider doing more like this.

 

[PaintBoss]

Terri, that turned out GREAT! Honestly, seeing some proof that it is a painting ( paper curling) instead of some computer image is inspiring. It is that clean, and well done. I mean, it is a shame there’s not a way you could mount that or laminate it and attach it to the phone nook!
You know you picked the wrong paper when you have the consequences almost right away. And that’s awful when you have a really nice painting on the go! About eight years ago, I got 3/4 the way through a painting, using a new hot press pad of watercolour paper. Good make. I don’t do many washes which was good for this type of paper. Anyways, I don’t know if there was a flaw in the paper, but right almost smack in the middle of the painting the paper just started lifting and separating. A spot that was going to be a hole if I did anything more to it. So frustrating, it was a simple part of the piece too. I had not mucked around with it. And yet it looked like a kid who had been drawing and erasing too much and one spot. So picking the right paper from the outset always a good idea. Especially with your work just turns out so lovely that they’re all keepers Terri!

 

[john]

You did a great job. I have that paper also and yeah, pretty bad for water based paints. That being said, you might try gluing it to a board? It would flatten it and you could frame it. Acrylic gel medium is one way.

 

[Artyczar]

ABSOLUTELY wonderful! This could not be any more precious! I love the style, the color, and just everything about it. It's so damn COOL! You must frame it somehow, mount it, something, and put it in that hallway niche! Then, take a pic of it there and show us, please?

 

[Terri]

Wow - a big collective THANK YOU to everyone for all the kind and encouraging words! I guess we all know how it feels to be looking at something that has a lot of flaws in it, and so your own thoughts and feelings towards it are, I don't know - somewhere in the basement, maybe? by the time you're done. It's so nice to get encouraging feedback from this wonderful group - thank you again.

Well. I kind of developed an idea and have already executed it, in part. Some of you are familiar with my gel medium image transfers from this old thread. I ended up printing the photo of this phone onto the same cheap copy paper and making a gel medium image transfer. Well, it's almost complete, anyway.

But - I can easily slap that thing into the phone niche if I want to. So - partial problem solved. Huzzah! and all that. But I *might* want to do a little sketching around it so it's not just floating there, and so have brilliantly created another challenge for myself. I'm really, really, good at that.

But the idea does live on, at least for now. I have to see how it looks. Thanks again to you all. This place rocks.

 

[Dave Woody]

Love it.

 

[ams]

Good job. I like how you captured the shine on the surface. Sorry the paper you used wasn't right for the medium you used. It takes away so much of the enjoyment of creating.

 

[Terri]

Dave, Anne thank you both for the kind words!

Yes, Anne - the battle with the paper took some of the fun out of it.

 

[Donna T]

You did such a beautiful job with this, Terri! I love everything about it and hope you might pick up a brush again!