What are you working on?

[PaintBoss]

I love the crown concept. We live it, feel it and survive it!
Can’t wait to see the painting.

 

[brianvds]

Once a week, I give art lessons to a bunch of primary school kids. It's a difficult age in art - the cheerful confidence of early youth gives way to ego-driven anxiety, and a greater awareness of art leads to ambitions that far outstrip ability. They all want to try their hand at comic book art, particularly manga, but with one or two exceptions, are not really remotely ready to take on that kind of art.

So what do I do? It occurred to me that they may enjoy graffiti designs (which is partly why I became interested in it, hence that other thread on this controversial art form). And thus, I played a round a bit with graffiti-style design:

Now this was fun, and perhaps the kids will enjoy having a go at it - I'll see soon enough.

 

[Terri]

Once a week, I give art lessons to a bunch of primary school kids. It's a difficult age in art - the cheerful confidence of early youth gives way to ego-driven anxiety, and a greater awareness of art leads to ambitions that far outstrip ability. They all want to try their hand at comic book art, particularly manga, but with one or two exceptions, are not really remotely ready to take on that kind of art.

So what do I do? It occurred to me that they may enjoy graffiti designs (which is partly why I became interested in it, hence that other thread on this controversial art form). And thus, I played a round a bit with graffiti-style design:

View attachment 39080

Now this was fun, and perhaps the kids will enjoy having a go at it - I'll see soon enough.

Great idea! Let us know how the kids respond to it.

 

[Terri]

I'm currently working on something outside my comfort zone. I've been doing a small series of image transfers, as another way to display my images, and have been using small, inexpensive canvases.

Most of my image transfers just involve using the ink from a printer and some liquid transfer medium - anything from water to nail polish remover/acetone, which yield various different looks. I came across a method using gel medium, and while it's been around for years I've never tried it until recently.

I just printed an image using plain old copy paper, and before printing reversed the image. Then I applied several layers of gel medium, letting each layer dry in between (doesn't take long). I stopped after 8 layers and let it alone overnight.

Then I cut the image out of the large piece of copy paper and soaked it in lukewarm water, to loosen the paper that remained from the original printout. After the soak you rub off the copy paper. What's left is the ink of the image, suspended in the acrylic gel.

Some pics: this first one shows the other copy of the two printouts that I made, just to have a spare. The one that' cut down and reversed is the image embedded in the gel medium skin. I used heavy gloss gel medium, so it's shiny and still shows some bits of copy paper stuck to it.

This one below shows how transparent the transfer is. My numerous foam brush strokes are visible, too (no matter, as it will be flipped in the end).

A side view - it's pretty tough and sturdy:

So far, so good. I like the transparency and the toughness of this method, after all the recent ones I've done with tissue paper.

 

[Artyczar]

Exciting Terri!

 

[OliveOyl]

Hi kids.

I’m trying something new here and as usual, I’m figuring things out as I go, so I’m wasting a lot of time and making annoying mistakes.

For the next batch of work, I’m sticking with old family photos (mostly from the hub side of the family though) and am choosing images that are inexplicably…odd. Like, what ARE these people doing?? Why was this picture taken, or even kept?? Please don’t ask me why I wanted to incorporate some Ernst Haeckel tidbits or use a fluorescent acrylic background. Or why I chose “pour paint” for the background. Maybe I just liked the roundish squirty bottle. It was cute. But the fluorescent background ending up being too glossy and even though I sanded it back a bit, the oil paint just sat there on top and was very transparent. So then I’d mix a color (say, like ochre yellow), and when I applied it onto this intense background, it looked olive green. And so on with every color which required several coats to fix until I got it more opaque and flat and accurate in color.

Anyway, I’ll often take a picture of the painting I’m working on and look at it on my iPad which I find easier to “read” than with my own real life eyeballs, for some reason. Then I’ll jot down notes over the top which looks like this:

(Ha! Looks like demented scribblings)

When I start the next one, I think I’ll choose a more appropriate kind of fluorescent paint, and then put on a coat of clear gesso over the painted background first. I’ll see how/if that changes things. There’s a way to go on this one (still in its ugly stage for sure) and it’s filled with problems and issues that will need to be resolved. But I have faith I’ll fix those problems by reworking it to death and then end up hating it in the end. Cuz that’s how this demented olive rolls…

 

[Terri]

Hi kids.

I’m trying something new here and as usual, I’m figuring things out as I go, so I’m wasting a lot of time and making annoying mistakes.

For the next batch of work, I’m sticking with old family photos (mostly from the hub side of the family though) and am choosing images that are inexplicably…odd. Like, what ARE these people doing?? Why was this picture taken, or even kept?? Please don’t ask me why I wanted to incorporate some Ernst Haeckel tidbits or use a fluorescent acrylic background. Or why I chose “pour paint” for the background. Maybe I just liked the roundish squirty bottle. It was cute. But the fluorescent background ending up being too glossy and even though I sanded it back a bit, the oil paint just sat there on top and was very transparent. So then I’d mix a color (say, like ochre yellow), and when I applied it onto this intense background, it looked olive green. And so on with every color which required several coats to fix until I got it more opaque and flat and accurate in color.

Anyway, I’ll often take a picture of the painting I’m working on and look at it on my iPad which I find easier to “read” than with my own real life eyeballs, for some reason. Then I’ll jot down notes over the top which looks like this:

View attachment 39263
(Ha! Looks like demented scribblings)

When I start the next one, I think I’ll choose a more appropriate kind of fluorescent paint, and then put on a coat of clear gesso over the painted background first. I’ll see how/if that changes things. There’s a way to go on this one (still in its ugly stage for sure) and it’s filled with problems and issues that will need to be resolved. But I have faith I’ll fix those problems by reworking it to death and then end up hating it in the end. Cuz that’s how this demented olive rolls…

Olive, you crack me up! I think this is brilliant so far. Mistakes can often be gifts from the art gods, you know. At least, that's what I tell myself.

I love this and think it looks pretty cool right now! The clothing, the expressions - fun stuff! And you get to use the hubby's family pictures - even better. Can't wait to see your progress here.

 

[stlukesguild]

With this 3 day weekend... we get off for the solar eclipse... I finally got back to work painting. Today I completed all the gold leaf seen here and the tessellations and blocked in the hair... which like the figure below is a work in progress. The hair will almost certainly be a good deal lighter.

 

[Terri]

Looks like a great start, SLG. I've always dug your checkerboards in your compositions.

How great that you got the "eclipse day" off! Guess being in the path of totality there in Cleveland gets you some perks. Here around the Detroit/SE Michigan area, they tell us we're getting a measly 99.2%! lol

 

[stlukesguild]

Terri, Thanks. We got the day off because there was a concern about the kids looking up at the eclipse in progress when school let out. There is also a concern over the number of people coming to Cleveland to view the eclipse.

 

[Terri]

Terri, Thanks. We got the day off because there was a concern about the kids looking up at the eclipse in progress when school let out. There is also a concern over the number of people coming to Cleveland to view the eclipse.

Yep, it's going to be a zoo in several areas along the path of totality.

We are having a very sunny day, which is not at ALL what we were expecting. I'm glad I bought the damn glasses, because now I can enjoy it.

Local humor:

 

[stlukesguild]

We were worried. Weather forecasts from last week had predicted cloudy skies for today. When I got up this morning it was raining and the forecast called for clear skies from 12-2 and then cloudy after that. By noon we had clear skies and I took some pictures of the blossoming cherry tree in our front lawn.

Incredibly, the weather held out. I went outside at 3:00 pm as we approached the time of the total eclipse here (3:13) and the skies were still clear but the light was weird... There was an eerie glow that reminded me of the skies before a tornado. The camera in my cell phone was unable to capture the true look of the eclipse.

By this point the moon covered over half of the sun but you don't see that in the photographs. On the other hand, you can see how it has become increasingly dark.

At 3:13 the total eclipse began and you could look directly at the sun with the naked eye. Again, the camera failed to capture how things truly looked... although it did capture the strange clouds and jet streams. It became dark as night shortly after sunset and the street lights all came on. The dogs were all spooked by the experience.

This image taken by a Cleveland photographer working for one of the local news channels comes close to what we truly saw for 4 minutes or so:

It was an incredible... once-in-a-lifetime experience (unless I live to be over 140 )... or we travel to view a total eclipse somewhere else in the world.

 

[brianvds]

Incredibly, the weather held out. I went outside at 3:00 pm as we approached the time of the total eclipse here (3:13) and the skies were still clear but the light was weird... There was an eerie glow that reminded me of the skies before a tornado. The camera in my cell phone was unable to capture the true look of the eclipse.

Lucky that the weather cooperated - it tends to be extremely perverse with phenomena such as this. A Facebook friend of mine lives out west in the desert, where it is almost never cloudy - except for the few hours of the eclipse. He didn't see a thing, except it suddenly got dark for a few minutes!

By this point the moon covered over half of the sun but you don't see that in the photographs. On the other hand, you can see how it has become increasingly dark.

This is the thing with an eclipse - paradoxically, you begin to see just how astonishingly bright the sun actually is. Even when it is virtually completely covered up, you still don't see this by just glancing at the sun.

At 3:13 the total eclipse began and you could look directly at the sun with the naked eye. Again, the camera failed to capture how things truly looked... although it did capture the strange clouds and jet streams. It became dark as night shortly after sunset and the street lights all came on. The dogs were all spooked by the experience.

View attachment 39885

This image taken by a Cleveland photographer working for one of the local news channels comes close to what we truly saw for 4 minutes or so:

View attachment 39886

It was an incredible... once-in-a-lifetime experience (unless I live to be over 140 )... or we travel to view a total eclipse somewhere else in the world.

How lucky to conveniently live right in the path of totality. And at a time where you can enjoy the experience instead of being terrified by it, like people tended to be for most of our history.

We had a good one here some 20 years ago, but from where I live the sun was only obscured perhaps 80% or so. Even so, the light began to take on that rather eerie appearance. My brother and his wife traveled to northern South Africa to see the total phase, and were as blown away as you.

 

[Artyczar]

WOW!!!

 

[brianvds]

Got it in my head to try my hand at something surreal and creepy...

I find it is far easier to come up with ideas for such images than to actually draw them.

 

[JennieJo]

I'm currently working on something outside my comfort zone. I've been doing a small series of image transfers, as another way to display my images, and have been using small, inexpensive canvases.

Most of my image transfers just involve using the ink from a printer and some liquid transfer medium - anything from water to nail polish remover/acetone, which yield various different looks. I came across a method using gel medium, and while it's been around for years I've never tried it until recently.

I just printed an image using plain old copy paper, and before printing reversed the image. Then I applied several layers of gel medium, letting each layer dry in between (doesn't take long). I stopped after 8 layers and let it alone overnight.

Then I cut the image out of the large piece of copy paper and soaked it in lukewarm water, to loosen the paper that remained from the original printout. After the soak you rub off the copy paper. What's left is the ink of the image, suspended in the acrylic gel.

Some pics: this first one shows the other copy of the two printouts that I made, just to have a spare. The one that' cut down and reversed is the image embedded in the gel medium skin. I used heavy gloss gel medium, so it's shiny and still shows some bits of copy paper stuck to it.

View attachment 39089


This one below shows how transparent the transfer is. My numerous foam brush strokes are visible, too (no matter, as it will be flipped in the end).

View attachment 39090


A side view - it's pretty tough and sturdy:

View attachment 39091


So far, so good. I like the transparency and the toughness of this method, after all the recent ones I've done with tissue paper.

I have tried a few options to transfer, but not exactly like this. Looks fascinating. Will be trying that. Thanks.

 

[JennieJo]

Got it in my head to try my hand at something surreal and creepy...

View attachment 40140

I find it is far easier to come up with ideas for such images than to actually draw them.

You nailed it. Fantastic work.

 

[Terri]

Got it in my head to try my hand at something surreal and creepy...

View attachment 40140

I find it is far easier to come up with ideas for such images than to actually draw them.

Love it! Nicely done!

 

[Artyczar]

Got it in my head to try my hand at something surreal and creepy...

View attachment 40140

I find it is far easier to come up with ideas for such images than to actually draw them.

Great work Brian. I find that as long as the ideas are portrayed well enough for the ideas, you'll have a successful piece. And this is what you have here. In fact, sometimes, when the technical skill supersedes the idea, the idea or message can get lost and the charm and voice of the artist no longer exist. I think you rendered this well in this medium. It's cool and creepy, just as you wanted it to be. I really like it!

 

[Enyaw]

Thinning out my paintings again. Had about 370 on paper and put it back to 150. Strange what you think acceptable only later to see gaping holes and walls where once stood a painting.