What's Coming in 2017!

My calendar is beginning to look pretty booked up for 2017.  Starting in January, I will be traveling to a few places I haven't been too in several years,  January through October, I will be teaching several classes & workshops that I am really looking forward to.  Subjects include: Watercolor, Screen Printing, Paper Collage, Abstract Acrylic, Gelli Printing and more!  Plus I will be taking a few workshops this year as well. I love to learn new things.  It's going to be a fun, productive year!

Image is of a gelli print I made a few years ago. These make the most awesome backgrounds for greeting cards, art journals, ATC cards, etc. 

Alternative Gelli Plate Prints

At our open studio this morning we played around with an alternative Gelli Plate printing technique, using stencils from my good friend Cecilia Swatton, via Stencil Girl.  Along with a variety of texture tools, these were some of the prints that were made.  Totally had a great time and will be making some fun and funky jewelry next week from these awesome papers.

 

 

Blind Contour Drawing

I recently challenged the Friday painting group to have a little fun with me.  Way back when, I had an interesting assignment that allowed us to use a model in class.  A model who was dressed in a silk kimono, sitting a wicker peacock chair.  The assignment was to draw this image using only blind contour drawing.  In other words, do not let your eyes move from the model.  No looking at your paper until you were done with the whole drawing.  I simplified my challenge to just one thing.  Either a sunflower, a lotus seed head or a small group of rosehips.  Each participant could draw all three or just one, but they had to draw without looking at the paper.  Here is one of the drawings I made:  I did the rosehips first and followed it with seed heads.  The next step was to add splashes of color, which I have not done yet. 
In my original challenge, our next step was to create a collage using magazine pages and I think I might do a collage instead of splashes of paint for this as well.  It's a long time since I've done a collage and it might be fun.  Next week we will exploring watercolor painting without the aid of a drawing.  We will be focusing on flowers, specifically the sunflower. 
If you live in the Salt Lake City valley and are over 60, I would like to invite you to join the group.  We met at the Taylorsville Senior Center every Friday from 9 'til noon.   

Finishing Up for the Year 2013

Just a couple of months ago I began a series of watercolor field journals and I've already managed to finish 2 of them.  I filled the pages with experiments, drawings, notes from books, etc.  What a wonderful feeling to have completed a project for a change!
 

 

So for the new year, I have begun 3 more of these journals, one for value sketches & compositional layouts, one for experiments using a variety of techniques for water media and another for notes from all the books I read and videos I watch.  There is so much information out there and so many fun things to try, that I will have no problem keeping busy during 2014. 

 

A New Blog

My local watercolor guild here in Sandy Utah is interested in having an on-line presence and sharing their work in one central place that is easy enough that all can participate.  I have been working on getting the blog set up and will be adding more fun things soon.  Please take a moment to go explore the home page, along with an experiment for textures page and get signed up to follow us by e-mail.  The guild's new blog address is:  Sandy WC Guild  (Click the name and it will take you to the blog). 
This blog isn't just about watercolor, it will feature many other things.

All water/wet media will be included, along with monthly challenges for our show & tell (which I hope we will start doing at our local monthly meetings beginning 2014),  (you can play along with these challenges too and post your results on your blog!  Simply leave us a link in the comments.) There are additional pages that share experimental results at the moment, but I will be posting techniques for: stenciling, carving textures, acrylics, inks, book reviews, etc. etc.  The possibilities are endless.  Please join us and don't forget to leave comments! 
Feedback is always monitored due to spammers, so your comments will not appear until they have been approved.  You may also share a link to your own website or blog in your comment.  We would love to venture over and take a peek at what you are creating. 
If you are interested in sharing a technique you have created, or a link to a good video you think would help inspire us, please leave the link in the comments and I will check it out.  If you host free tutorials, we would love to know about them, if you have written a book, a pdf zine or an e-book, again we would love to know about it. 
I recently set up a Facebook Group as well, but to keep life simple for me, I will be posting only to this blog and to the Sandy WC Guild blog.  No sense in duplicating my efforts. 
Not sure I shared this work in progress (above) with you all yet, but this is an enlarged area of berries in a bush taken from a photo I took up in Idaho at a fish hatchery.  I got kind of carried away with making the little streets on the leaves to make them look like maps viewed from space.  So, OK, I'm not always "photo realistic".  :-D

Paint It

 

I think this book would be a welcome addition to any child's (young or old) library.  While it is clearly designed for the beginning artists who want to explore the many options afforded by mixed media, it carries some of the projects into an intermediate level, but still remains doable for all ages.  At first I was skeptical only because I am an experienced mixed media artist, but the further I investigated the projects shown in the book, the more inspired I became.  The book is full of useful information, inspirational projects and easy to follow instructions.  Published by: Capstone Young Readers publishing company, it is precise in its instructions, has great photos for guidance and I am impressed with all of the information this one compact book supplies.   The mixed media projects include: Creating "Color Fields"-(which are modern day abstracts), making your own scratchboards (I remember these from elementary school and I loved creating designs by scratching off the black surface), indirect & direct painting with oils, and Chinese Brush work.  This book touches a bit on surrealism, plein air (outdoor painting), mosaics and so much more.
I'll be adding this book to my Granddaughters library for Christmas.  I'm going to love doing these projects with her.  Share your time, share your art. 
PS.  If you do art journaling and want to learn about a variety of supplies and techniques, this is a beginners book that would help you incorporate many forms of mixed media into your journals.  From: watercolor, to oil pastels, to acrylics and applying textures, this book covers what you need to get started. 

Please note-I am an affiliate of Amazon and I do receive a few pennies for every book you purchase via the link.  It adds up and allows me to purchase a book or two each year.  So thanks for clicking on....

Wow! Ann Blockley's Latest Book!

I had the privilege of reviewing Ann Blockley's newest painting book and I wish I had this amazing book a few months ago!  It is the perfect book to motivate and inspire anyone who is interested in incorporating mixed media materials with watercolor.  The instructions allow you to experiment on your own with plenty of ideas to get you started.  Ann Blockley shares plenty of her beautiful paintings throughout the book along with her observations of how she accomplished each technique.  Her goal was to explore the many possibilities of incorporating various ways to achieve her desired effects and she has succeeded. 
A must have book for those painters wanting some inspiration and motivation to branch out and explore on your own,  This book will enable you to  create paintings that are uniquely yours using supplies that you can combine with watercolor.  Techniques that will give you individual results.
If you are an intermediate watercolor painter, or want to learn more about this media, click the link in the sidebar to get this book today.  Even though I was able to review this book without making a purchase, I bought the book!  It is a must have and I have already begun experimenting with mark making using tools I already have! 

Please note-I am an affiliate of Amazon and I do receive a few pennies for every book you purchase via the link.  It adds up and allows me to purchase a book or two each year.  So thanks for clicking on....

Assignment 4

If you haven't been following Milliande through this journey of self discovery, it's not too late to join in the fun.  We are only at Assignment 4 and the previous assignments can be done in just a few minutes-maybe an hour.  Developing a pattern from shapes which is this assignment, took the longest.  I call this: "Three Sisters of St. Mary's". 

New Abstracts

I managed to get down to my painting studio yesterday and throw some paint around on a few canvases.  I have been working on these for months, painting and over-painting.  I just wasn't satisfied with anything, until yesterday.  I re-painted them yet again with a new barn red (looks orange in these photos) instead of a bold-bright red and it all came together for me.  I call these Crossroads I & II because I was at a crossroads in which way to go with them.  I am not an abstract painter and I avoided abstract anything because to me it is organized/disorganized chaos.
Yesterday I changed my mind.  I was literally dancing in front of these paintings, waving my arm around, laughing and having a great time.  I let myself freely experience the randomness of the moment and if anyone happened to glance in the window,  they would have thought I had lost my mind.  Wow, what a feeling!  Oh yeah-these are done with a palette knife, a first for me!