Indiana New Year

Happy New Year Everyone !

What a wonderful year of sharing with all of you, again. I enjoy this thing we call art blogging. I have viewed fantastic art and photos, read wondrous poems and stories by all of you. Thank you for enriching my life and giving me food for thought and helping me to grow.  Thank you for visiting me. Your comments have helped me to see through new eyes and most of all helped boost my confidence to continue sharing. Thank you.

The above painting was painted in much the same way as the previous one. I painted all the large light washes first; the sky and foreground. I, then, splattered frisket and painted frisket on the branches of the foreground tree and the roofs of the tiny buildings in the background. I painted more of the washes of foreground and sky so the frisket would show up. After those washes dried, I went in and used burnt sienna, halloween orange, blue stone, naples yellow and sepia to define the background trees wet in wet. After it dried, I removed the frisket.

Indiana Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Great White Pelicans

The above painting was accomplished similar to the elephant I posted, recently. I drew the pelicans in graphite and then went back over the drawing by drawing with an eye dropper and ink. Unlike the elephant, I did the whole drawing in ink before lightly spritzing it with water. This is because quite a large amount of ink is applied by drawing with an eye dropper.  The effect is a little more loose and the spread of ink is large and blotchy. I think it enhances the feeling of movement. I splattered the drawing with frisket prior to painting and then with a dark watercolor once the washes were dry. I have used this technique, previously, here and here.

Information on the Great White Pelican here.

New Student Art: Watercolor Plus Class

Jennifer Parks

Judy Notestine

David Hess

The above gouache resists were created by students in my watercolor plus class. This class has just ended. I have posted one example of each of the students’ work on the Student Art 2 Page.

In this class we explored rice paper collage with watercolor, painting on gesso, gouache resist, and ink and watercolor. We explored the effects of splattering, creating texture with saran wrap, and the use of frisket.

I want to personally thank all my students for their hard work and extra input and sharing during this class. I am always sorry to see them end.

 

Ink and Watercolor: Elephant 2

This week, my class is working on something rendered with ink and watercolor. They could choose from several different techniques. The above is the one I chose.  I drew the above elephant in graphite, first, and then went back in with india ink and nib, like what is used for calligraphy, and traced over my drawn lines. About every three lines (before the ink dried), I spritzed that area with water (not a squirt but a “spritz”). This causes the ink to creep out into the texture of the paper creating the feathering you see around every line. This does not work on hotpress paper. It requires the use of coldpress and rough papers as their texture is what causes this creeping of ink.  The process is slow and somewhat tedious, but the results are well worth the extra effort.  I usually splatter the surface with some frisket, before I begin, to add some texture and extra effects. I also splattered with some ink to provide more texture. I wait for this to dry completely before painting.

The above is what I came up with.

Other examples of this technique are here and here.