Tuesday, August 30, 2011

'i want to be with those who know secret things or else alone' ~ casein paint, watercolors, oil pastels, graphite, and gouache in 'the merry men'

daniel smith is having a special - a 66 dot sample card of their watercolors, plus 1 ounce of their watercolor ground for $2.99 with free shipping!

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"I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

XO

Sunday, August 28, 2011

'in my own world' ~ gouache, watercolors, casein paint, oil pastels and graphite in 'the merry men'

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photo by james van der zee

I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.

~ Jean-Michel Basquiat

via tumblr

XO

Saturday, August 27, 2011

'imogene listening' ~ watercolor, oil pastel, and colored pencil in 'the merry men'

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“The real artist’s work is a surprise to himself.”

~ Robert Henri

via mary ann wakeley's tumblr

XO

Friday, August 26, 2011

'lyra' ~ watercolor, gouache, casein paint, oil pastel, colored pencil, and graphite in 'the merry men'

XO

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

untitled ~ casein paint, oil pastels, and colored pencil on plaster

whew! i went out of town for five days and figured i'd be able to get a post in while i was gone... nope!

so this is another plaster piece; i worked right on the plaster - no gel medium on the surface first, and i realized this is the way that i want to work on plaster from now on. this is the second image that i did on this surface. the first time i added wax and then didn't like it, so i scraped not only the wax off, but also the top layer of plaster. not an easy thing to do. the more you scrape, the harder the plaster gets. it's like a kind of burnishing, which seems to have all kinds of potential for making a really durable and hard surface.


it's on a piece of wood about the size of my hand... i loved that the wood was so sturdy, and could handle the pressure i applied when carving and scraping the plaster.

thank you all for your kind words about last week's plaster!

alrighty, now i'm gonna do a little blog visiting...

and, i just discovered that lynda barry has a tumblr ...

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renoir ~ self portrait

“I think I’m beginning to learn something about it”

Last words about painting, age 78…

~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir

via tumblr


XO

Thursday, August 18, 2011

gouache, oil pastels, watercolors, and casein paint on plaster covered with beeswax

a few weeks ago, when i made the plaster substrate for 'her wings were invisible', (here) i made another piece to use later; it sat outside for a couple of weeks until i sawed it in half lengthwise a few days ago. i got two long, narrow pieces that i didn't crack, just glued them to some cardboard. i thought they might be the covers for a plaster book...


then i made some more pieces on paper about the thickness of poster paper, and since then i've kind of lost interest in the book idea! now i'm thinking that i'll make a stack of them and then make a box for them. but who knows!


one thing i've learned is that plaster cloth on plaster gets much harder than plaster cloth on plaster cloth. i know, it sounds confusing, but the idea is that plaster cloth stuck to itself is still very easy to carve into (and this is what i've worked on in the past), whereas plaster cloth on plaster is like concrete. it's not easy to carve into.

the reason i put the plaster cloth on there was to see if it would 'heal' the places where i cracked the piece in my impatience to get on with things. the piece was flopping around, broken, so i put a strip of plaster cloth over the cracks, and like magic it was rigid again. now i know that i can 'repair' floppy pieces...


my art table a couple of nights ago... two plaster pieces for me to gaze at while i worked in 'the merry men'. ; )

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“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. (…)

Without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless creating.”

~ Pearl Buck, via tumblr

XO

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

'alice' ~ casein paint, gouache, watercolors, and oil pastel in 'the merry men'

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john and yoko's film 'bed peace' (1969) is here until august 21st... at 51:40 they sing 'give peace a chance'...

: )


XO

Sunday, August 14, 2011

'the flowering tree' ~ gouache, watercolors, colored pencil, and oil pastel in 'the merry men'

listening to 'flowering tree totem' by david and steve gordon made me want to have a go at painting a flowering tree... it looked more or less tree-like (i.e. brown bark) until i got to thinking about the

'self portrait in a felt hat' ~ vincent van gogh

self portrait of vincent

that i saw on tumblr earlier in the day. when i went back to look at it again i thought that i really did need to add some color to the flowering tree. try to bring some light into it...

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“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

~C.S. Lewis via tumblr

XO

Friday, August 12, 2011

'being here' ~ casein paint, 8B graphite pencil, gouache, watercolors, and oil pastel in 'the merry men'

XO

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

'the angel sender' ~ watercolors, gouache, graphite, oil pastels, sari silk, and casein paint in 'the merry men'

so here i am, working in 'the merry men', by robert louis stevenson. i adore this book... i know, i adored the milton book, too, but i might adore this one a little more, ha!

a very poor picture of it

it's bigger - almost 5" x 7", and i like that. the paper isn't as strong, though, so i'm putting a thin layer of matte gel medium on the page before i start drawing.

the main things that i'm doing differently in this book is that i'm only painting on the front side of the page, and i'm not adding any pogo prints or anything else. it's going to be a book of just paintings. one of the best things about this is that i won't have to take out so many pages to accomodate the thickness of the pogo prints. i haven't decided where i'll stick them yet...


i got the cotton cloth tape here... it is good, strong stuff - with a natural rubber adhesive backing.

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“All the music already exists somewhere. Artists are only the people who translate it… There is a creative force we’re part of. Look, this here is called reality. Ok? This is three-dimensional and this exists. But there are also other worlds, worlds I don’t have to create, but who I can hear. And that I try to translate. In those worlds I live too. Everybody can. But what happens sometimes is that some artists are getting confused and think they create it all themselves. They're getting drunk on that. And then you’ve got a problem. Then people die from drugs. Cause when you’re a translator and you begin to think that everything is coming out of you, then you’re getting burnt alive. You won’t make it.”

~ Tori Amos, Oor magazine, via tumblr

XO

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

'simple' ~ gouache, watercolors, derwent drawing pencil, casein paint, soft and oil pastels in 'the merry men', by r.l. stevenson - 4.5" x 7"

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“I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists.”

~ Marcel Duchamp,via tumblr


XO

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

'and there came a day' ~ watercolors, oil pastels, gouache & casein paint in milton book

thank you all for your well wishes for the show! i think that it was a success... it's interesting to have people come up to you and tell you what they think this or that piece means - usually something that i'd never thought of in my wildest dreams! but people did resonate with my faces, and that is somehow very satisfying.

since i've come back i've been overcome by a 'silent spell'. i finished the milton book and have started in a new book. just taking it easy though, mostly. see what comes in next... i'm gonna take a small blogging break while everything settles and resettles...

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“The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.”

~ Gregory Maguire, via tumblr


XO