It's a Love/Hate thing

" I had a mother who taught me there is no such thing as failure.  It is just a temporary postponement of success." -Buddy Ebsen, actor

Daily Painting: Day 11

If you saw yesterday's post, you saw the experimentation I was doing with some mixed media on sanded pastel paper - UART 500.  I learned a lot and I had fun, as I always do when I do these kind of playful backgrounds.

So, the experimentation (i.e. learning) continues today.  See the progression below.  This is definitely in the HATE phase right now.  I have found I go through cycles of LOVE (sometimes just LIKE) and then HATE (or really not thrilled).  It's tempting to give up at this stage but I figure I have nothing to lose (except maybe some time) and always something to gain (i.e. a successful painting or at the very least lessons on what went wrong).

I'm really just kind of winging it when I do these portraits in pastel.  I've not had any instruction and pastels are much different than acrylics.  I'm definitely NOT in my comfort zone.  So, come along and get uncomfortable (and learn) with me.

sketch with soft charcoal (easy to erase)

 blocking in darkest values
LIKE it stage

WIP  unfinished portrait - in the HATE stage
9x12 pastel on mixed media UART 500 paper

Seems a shame that I covered up all of that lovely background, doesn't it? In fact, I think I almost like the second version better.  I was trying to allow some of the background to show through but at some point lost it.  Well, maybe next time.  Let's see what tomorrow brings with this one, shall we?

A Day of Play

"Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible." — M. C. Escher

Daily Painting: Day 10

Background on UART 400

I've had a few requests via my etsy shop to paint some new paintings of the saints.  However, I find myself in a bit of a dilemma now that I have discovered my new found love for pastels.  My past images were acrylics done on canvas board. They all had a bright, colorful, playful collage backgrounds.  The backgrounds began with ripped paper pasted to the board then layers of acrylics here and there, stamps and stencils.  Pastels would not work over such a background because they need something to adhere to especially when layer upon layer is being put down.  So I wondered how I could achieve a similar look but with pastels.  So, today was a day of experimenting.  I used my favorite pastel paper, UART sanded paper with a 400 grit.  I knew that this kind of pastel paper does take wet mediums.  I did want to be careful, though, not to use too much of any thick mediums that might fill the tooth of the paper.  I figured watercolors would work but wasn't sure how they would actually flow and react with this paper and with the various fun texture creating techniques that can be accomplished with watercolor.  Hence the experimenting began.

Quick Study on UART 400

I began with a quick study.  I just wanted to see, quickly, how this paper would accept and respond to certain things such as a detailed stamp and a few layers of watercolor.  Then I wondered how the pan pastels would go down on top of the painted background.  I even tried adding a few details with pastel pencils.   I was hopeful but felt I needed to do a larger painting.

watercolor on 8x10 Uart 400

Here I was playing with some watercolor techniques using salt and alcohol.  The watercolors did react but not as evident as it is on watercolor paper.  Also, I found the water doesn't flow like it does on watercolor paper.  To be expected for sure, but I was a little disappointed.

You can see some texture when I added some bubble wrap and saran wrap.  Actually it looked better in this photo than in real life.  And I will say the colors are much brighter and prettier than in this photo.

I continued to play.  I used my gelli print plate with acrylic paint to add the stencil of the rose in 2 places, I then watered down some white paint and painted over the top in some places to downplay the vibrancy.  I added some stamps here and there with staz-on ink (so there would be no bleeding).  I continued to add some more watercolor washes and spritz with alcohol and remove some by blotting with paper towel.

Finished background on UART 400

The next step will be sketching my image onto the background and beginning to color it in with pan pastels (something I have very little experience with so we will see).  More experimentation.