Sketching And Gouache

June 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I recently participated (somewhat) in an online journalling class with Roz Stendahl.  It was sponsored by Strathmore.  See Roz’ blog here.  She encouraged me to sketch in this workshop, even though I’m not a big sketcher of real items.  I’m more of a…doodler.  I do appreciate seeing someone else’s work of sketching and the fact that Roz painted her sketches was interesting.  But for me to do it…not so much.

I was out mowing the yard on Monday when I saw dried seed pods on our Golden Raintree trees.  I knew I had to grab that twig with pods and sketch it.  There was something so simple about it…and it was old, from last years pods, and dried out.

I did sketch it, then yesterday I decided to paint the page with gouache, which is a watercolor paint that Roz highly recommends.  I purchased some specifically to try it out.  I sort of like the process.  I don’t know that this will make me become an avid sketcher, but I’m warming to it.  Roz would be so proud.  (And I have enough gouache to last me to my nineties.  I only ordered 3 tubes, but the amount of paint this took is so minimal.)

Pods

I’m even thinking of adding some photo transfer to this page.  The Golden Raintree trees are now in bloom, preparing to launch their thousands of new seed pods.  I took photos yesterday.

Filed Under: creativity, paint Tagged With: , , ,

Roz Stendahl’s Workshop At Strathmore Begins

May 4, 2011 by 3 Comments

I played last night at creating backgrounds for Roz’ class. I enjoyed it immensely. I did use some acrylic inks to splatter on the pages, but they seemed to dry v…e…r…y slowly, so I am not pleased with them. I am wondering if the brand or the age of the inks might be the issue. I used a Crafter’s Workshop circle grid stencil and distress ink pads to make the designs. Distress ink is probably not going to be waterproof going forward, but we shall see. I enjoyed playing with the colors and textures.

Mixed Media Visual Journal

I REALLY like the mixed media paper…not as heavy as the watercolor, but takes the wet media very well.

So now I am making a list of Golden Fluid acrylic paints I need…I pretty much used up the only yellow I had.

The next photo is the 140 lb. watercolor journal.

Filed Under: acrylic paint, collage, color, creativity Tagged With: , , , ,

More Art Supplies

January 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

My Visual Journals arrived just in time for the Strathmore journal project.  I got a few other things in that order too….a circle template, Alfred Durer watercolor pencils, 2 sizes of Visual Journals and some Gum Arabic in powder form.

Some of you may ask, what is the Gum Arabic for?  Well, I read online about how to use it mixed with Pearl-Ex powdered pigments and water.  Guess what?  I have a whole set of Pearl-Ex powdered pigments I have never used.  I think it’s time, hence the Gum Arabic.

So in the Strathmore online workshops, the first video lesson was put up on Saturday.  Here is what I put together for the first week.  Mind you, this is only a start.  It is not finished…there are three more weeks to go of work that will go into it.  This is just the base.

I used a tracing of a windmill (I like old windmills) and some doodles from my sketchbook, a woman cut from a magazine, the torn strips are a photo of…cardboard!  The words are from a magazine.  It will be interesting to see how it transforms in the next few weeks.

We were instructed on the video to make sure to get all the bubbles out of the paper as we glued it down, but no, not me.  I couldn’t get mine flat.  Oh well, I’ll either use the bubbles as a design element in some fashion or I’ll cover it up somehow.  That’s the way I work.

And here, I made some more felted wool beads.  From the bottom clockwise, we have Lima Bean, Raspberry, Turquoise, Berry, Turquoise and Berry again.  These are fun.

Filed Under: collage, color, creativity Tagged With: , , , ,