Silky

  

Among the many ideas kicking around in my head, one of them I'll eventually get to is silk painting. Because of the nature of silk, in order to keep the colors from running together, the French serti technique uses a resist called Gutta that is not washed out of the silk but remains as a three dimensional texture.  It's often metallic colored, but it keeps the pools of paint in each section, giving a lovely stained-glass feel to the piece.  In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here is one Etsy shop with the kind of silk painting I'm referring to:  GABYGA.

I thought I'd try something like that for this piece.  I used Yupo paper, which is challenging because the paint puddles on it and evaporates rather than soaking in.  So in order to keep the colors separated I used Sakura Gelly Roll Souffle gel pens for the "resist".  Souffle gives a puffy, raised line that worked pretty well and didn't have any problem sitting on the yupo paper.  In between the lines I used the same ink I'd use on silk... Inktense.  I used the blocks (as pan watercolors, basically) dabbled into puddles of paint and moved around.  The nice thing about Yupo is that it's really easy to keep a wet edge, which is important working with Inktense because once it dries, you're stuck with it (maybe... Yupo seemed to make that a little more fluid).  Then I went back with the Inktense pencils for the lines and softened them a bit with water.  It was a fun process, actually.   

Lovely photography courtesy of Nicole Hanna

I've been racking my brain for a theme for the rapidly approaching 30 Paintings in 30 Days and yesterday it hit me (and then obsessed me... well, that happens):  my friends' Facebook pictures.  I have some friends who are amazing photographers and other friends whose family and pets I've wanted to paint for ages.  Well, this is a good excuse to do it.  So I put it out on Facebook and tagged some people, and the response was overwhelmingly positive and instantaneous.  

My friend Nicole Hanna is a woman of limitless talents who does a lot of the same things I do -- she takes breathtaking photographs, she is an artist herself, and not only makes the most amazing wire woven jewelry known to man, but shares her techniques with the world.  If jewelry interests you at all and you don't already know her (how do you not?), you should check out her website.

As soon as I had this idea her Facebook photos were one of the first to come to mind.  She does adorable photos of her cats and crazy cool stop-action water droplet photos.  But when I put up the post she shared this picture.  I still want to do one of her cats, but it's not September yet so I still can.  ;)

Anyway this photograph looks like a watercolor already so I thought I'd go a little surreal with it, with the silk painting technique, and I'm fairly happy with the results.

Actual silk painting is still in my future.   I can do it with Inktense, too.  And I think I'll try this on Yupo again, this time with some sort of metallic resist, and maybe on the transparent Yupo.  Mmm, ideas.  Thanks Painting Muse.

Peace Love and Yupo

My painting for today is pen and ink flowerdy peace sign on Yupo paper with watercolor mush around it. Yupo is WEIRD y'all.  Not sure I like it.  May need to play more.  I think it might be cool if I did a thick, permanent resist with puddled colors in the center, similar to THIS painting, but in watercolor on Yupo instead of acrylic on board . The cool thing is, this stuff comes in transparent form, so there are ideas for that.

 

 

Yesterday my (art major senior at TTU) son Brandon and I had an artist's date of sorts... my husband is in Nashville for his NRLCA Union convention so we went to have dinner with him and spent the day in Nashville.  This entailed a trip to Jerry's Art-a-Rama, and to the Frist Center for Visual Arts, where their rotating exhibit is currently Italian cars.  I took a TON of reference photos, since I'm mildly fascinated with painting cars lately.

Also on exhibit was the work of surrealist Inka Essenhigh.  I didn't think I was a surrealist fan but I thoroughly enjoyed her work, especially this painting, called In Bed . I'm sure my little thumbnail does it NO justice, but its subject is splayed out in bed with gremlins pulling her eyes open and spilling her guts.  Haven't we all had nights like that?  One thing I was particularly fascinated with was the source of light in several of her paintings.  In this one it seems to be the center of the subject and the center of the painting (the "guts") -- see the shadows the gremlins cast and the bed, as well?  I also love the way the blinds add a touch of the mundane and lead the eye into the painting.  The colors are impossibly vibrant, too... no photo of it could possibly do it justice.  If you're local, take a trip up there, it's worth it.

   

Russ's convention was at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, which is an amazing place.  It's nine acres of gardens which are INSIDE the hotel, with the rooms built around and overlooking it, complete with waterways (you can actually take a boat on one of them), waterfalls, gorgeous fountains.  The hotel was all but destroyed with the horrible flooding we had in 2010.

I took a lot of reference pictures there too, but walking through the lobby I spied this glass sculpture and rushed over to it, thinking:  CHIHULY!!  It wasn't, it's done by Ludech Hroch, and once again, my picture does it no justice.  If you get the opportunity to visit the grounds of the hotel, you should take that too.  The sculpture's name and theme are totally appropriate for the hotel and its return from near destruction; it's called "Resurgence."

  

I dropped by Hobby Lobby looking for a frame for the picture I did of Nick's car, having not found anything online that I really liked.  They had a 12" square frame with a 5x5 opening but nothing with 6x6, but then I saw this "floating" frame that is truly perfect.  Nick liked it, too.  I'm pretty happy with how it came out, considering it's the first time I've painted anything reflective in watercolor.

In a final bit of news, the little painting I did of Oldham Theater this week prompted a friend to commission me to paint the entire theater (not just the marquee), with "Star Wars" on the marquee, because he has fond memories of seeing Star Wars there.  Since I planned to paint the theater at night anyway, I'm looking forward to that challenge.  I think I might go for an evening/sunset theme, just to give myself a headache.  

Lots of news today!  Thanks for reading.