Painting Progress

I have to admit that I have been terribly lazy at documenting much of my creative endeavors lately and have ignored this spot quite badly but I am not all that sure that people are really bothering much with blogs these days. 

I do sort of feel like I should update it now and then though, so today, I will just share the last few watercolour painting lessons I have completed.

In this image of the painting of a Hydrangea cluster I have included a list of the paints used, its kind of surprising to see how many different colours go into creating a seemingly simple colour palette.

Then there are these yellow Tulips. I love yellow Tulips and am quite pleased with how they turned out.

My most recent finish is this Bowl of Peonies, this required a complex drawing to begin with and a lot of concentration. 

 I am currently enrolled as a student in Anna Mason's School of Art. All of these paintings are tutorials offered on the site. Most are step by step, but the Hydrangea is a "Pro" level where you are given instruction on how to handle a small bit and then you are off on your own to work the rest....so you really need to rely on what you learn with each tutorial you have completed. If you are unfamiliar with Anna's work you really should treat yourself to a look at her portfolio......her work is absolutely incredible.

 

I finally got around to adding mats to some of these paintings. They look so much better "dressed up"

 

*note ......I have currently disabled the ability to comment on posts as I receive far too many "spam-y" comments with suspicious links and have grown tired of dealing with them. 

Masks and Painting Progress

You are all probably growing tired of seeing all the mask tutorials circulating online, but I think we are gonna be wearing them for quite some time. So, why not have a design that is easy to make, functional and great fitting. I am not doing a tutorial here....instead,  I am going to direct you to the site of the amazingly talented Judy Coates Perez where she has posted a wonderful step by step tutorial, includes a link to a video by the original designer and as an added bonus, Judy has designed fabulous fabric that you could purchase to make these masks (each one is her incredible artwork)

I have made a few in this design and I have to say they are the best fitting yet, the shape gives you more breathing room and allows for a much better fit on the face. I originally made masks fashioned after the pleated medical type.....I like this newer design so much better.  I followed the instructions but I did make a couple of modifications. 

 

 

instead of a 3rd layer of cotton, I stitch a piece of non woven stabilizer to one of the cotton layers. ( its the stuff people use to stabilize/back machine embroidery work. It acts as an excellent filter.

 

for the nose wire.....I have been using twist ties. but sometimes they are pretty flimsy so I get around that by putting 2 or 3 (depends on what I feel it needs) together and then doing a zig zag stitch over top to keep them all together to serve as one solid bit. 

 this design also makes the masks reversible.....so you can use a vivid fabric print on one side and something a little more subdued on the other.  wear the one that matches your mood (or situation) that day. of course, be sure its been washed before switching it out.

Currently it can be difficult to avoid both news about Covid-19 and politics......while I strive to stay informed, I decided I also needed to find something positive to focus my attention on. Back in the spring I joined Anna Mason's School of Art. I have been working though a variety of skill building lessons

I thought I would show you my most recent paintings. This one was a lesson on how to handle painting glass.

and this Rose is an "advance" level lesson. I was concerned that I might not be ready for the complexities of this one, it took me a very long time, I worked slowly trying to capture the detail. I love that you can loose yourself and shut out the rest of the world as you put brush to paper

 

Watercolour, Crayon, Ink...Fabric or Paper.....Just create!

A few years ago, I had shown a glimpse of my very first project/article for The Canadian Quilter. At that time, I was asked if that pattern/design would become available at some point. Back then it was available to all CQA members....today I am making it available to all my readers to play with however they choose.

The design was called "Celyn", the project was an easy to do crayon on fabric technique ( I have shown it before) as well as a variety of ways to add colour to fabric, whether it is with inks, paint, crayons, pencils or dye sticks....you decide how you wish to do it.

first....you can download the design itself here, it is a PDF, that when printed at actual size will give you something that is about 7.5" x 7.5" (perfect to fit in an 8" block) but you can, of course, enlarge or reduce it to meet your needs

here I will give an quick refresher on using the crayon method.........gather your supplies

Cotton, freezer paper, crayons, permanent marker, textile medium

Press the cotton fabric onto a piece of freezer paper to help keep it stable for the drawing and colouring process. I simply used a Sharpie ultra-fine tipped permanent marker....you don't need fancy pens, these work just fine. I have been using them on fabric for years.

once you have the outline traced, you can begin colouring with the crayons.... randomly apply browns, oranges and greens to the woody stem portion of the design and then move onto the leaves.

Don't worry about being too fussy, continue to layer, build and blend the colours until you have acquired the intensity you desire.

A variety of greens and yellows were used on the leaves and if you look closely at the "detail" photo below, you will also notice that the same red used in the berries, has been used in quick strokes up the center of the leaves to add more depth and interest.

Tip:  you may wish to “test” your crayon choices on a scrap piece of fabric to ensure it is the desired colour.

Once you have finished colouring, the crayon will need to be heat set. Do this by placing the crayoned fabric face down on top of a few layers of paper towel and press from the wrong side, using a dry iron. The heat from the iron will cause some of the colour to be transferred to the paper towel.

When you are happy with your colouring and have heat set it, the next step will be to "seal" it. With an inexpensive artist brush, gently apply a thin layer of textile medium directly over the crayoned area and allow it to dry. There are many brands of textile mediums on the market and can be readily found at an art supply store and even at some craft stores...it should say “Textile Medium” on the bottle

Using crayons as instructed above is only one of the many ways to play with this design.....you could use a variety of mixed media or perhaps use the design as an embroidery, applique, stencil.....whatever you like and however you wish to play.....ENJOY!

This weekend, I decided to play with this design as a way to practice my watercolour technique. I traced the design onto some good watercolour paper, used my dip pen to ink the outline and just had fun watching the colours move about and play together

Then through the magic of a digital scrapbooking program, I thought I'd check to see how it might look as a Christmas card

Red Trillium

I ran into a small problem as I worked on this piece. From the sketch I had done previously, I began inking and painting this red trillium.

I always like my work to be as neat and tidy as possible, so I generally tape the borders of my painting to give a nice clean edge. The problem?.....because I had not doubled checked the measured area when I added my name, I found that the mat I had chosen, completely hid my signature.

In the past, I have been pretty lax about signing and dating my work, I am trying to break that habit, I really did like this mat combo, so I simply signed again......no one likely would have known without peeking under the mat.

This was being "gifted" so I did not have a lot of time to come up with a different solution.

Back to Basics

I finished my colour mixing chart....it is quite intriguing to watch how the colours blend and transform.  In creating this chart, I mixed only 2 colours at a time. Every colour on my palette is represented here, I can easily see how each reacts when mixed with each and every other one on my current pallet.

I now have a reference that will help me tremendously the next time I paint.  I can quickly see what colour "blend" will help get me headed in the right direction.

When I sketch, I often work from my photos, but yesterday was a lovely day to sit outside and work from real life. My white Trillium are at the "turning pink" stage, with the edges becoming very ruffled.  I plucked a bloom and began sketching.
Something I have a bad habit of doing, is sketching very small.....it then becomes rather difficult to  capture details.

 I tried again, this time with my one and only red Trillium,

working toward making much better use of the page

Learning by Doing

I am a hands on kind of person, definitely the "learn by doing" sort.  I find this to be the best learning method for me personally. It allows me to experiment, explore and discover for myself what works, and what doesn't. I like to dive right in.
I decided to try a doing a self portrait and while it is not quite right, I DID learn several things that I will be able to use in future projects

 

When I began quilting, I came to it with a good skill set (as a dressmaker/designer, my sewing skills and eye for detail were well honed) but as for my newest interest?......well I think that I may need to spend some time learning a few basics.
I thought it might be a good idea to create a colour mixing chart....not only to help with learning colour mixing, but also to know what  can be achieved with the actual colours I have on my palette.  I can find lots of info on colour mixing but I need to know how the supplies I have on hand will perform.

By creating the chart, I can get a feel for mixing colours and will then have a great reference as I move forward.

btw.....I have decided that I will not start a new/different blog, I will continue to keep it all here, I simply made a slight change to my banner, thanks everyone for your input  :-)

It looked okay......but.....

As I indicated in my previous post, I have turned my interest to learning Pen & Ink and Watercolour techniques.
So.....what about this title? Well, I will explain.....and show you. I wanted to try using a masking fluid to block out my main image so that I could easily create an interesting background. I had this bottle of masking fluid (Frisket)...it has been sitting on my shelf for a very long time.......it looked okay,  but evidently, it was not.

I first inked my subject, then brushed a layer of masking fluid across the areas I wanted to be left without paint.  The fluid went on nice and even.....acted exactly as I expected.

It was only after I painted the background that I discovered that I had a problem.

Instead of coming off easily, the Frisket was extremely difficult to remove, the more I tried, the "gooey-er" it became and if that wasn't bad enough, it was also lifting the ink.  ah ....but I had already spent a good deal of time on this, so, I was not giving up just yet.

I found the solution was to use my hair dryer, by warming that (now blackened) goo, I finally got it all off. 

BUT now my inked image had lost much of its ink and was being lost under the watercolour, so I went over it with fresh ink afterward. 

 You know the saying......Learn by your mistakes?  Okay, so, lesson learned, I later found out that apparently masking fluid only has a shelf life of about 1 year..... my bottle was nearly a decade old.

while I was at the art supply store (purchasing a new bottle of masking fluid), I decided to treat myself to some tubes of watercolour as well as a fresh new palette.

I placed colour in each of the wells of my new palette and then created a guide for myself. This guide will act as a quick reference for the not only the colour, but also the name and number for each....( I think I will include the brand and maybe date purchased as well)

In this detail photo, you can see that the concentrated dry paint in the wells look substantially different from the actual colour they produce.

I am currently trying to decide if I should start a new blog dedicated to my newest interest, or simply continue posting here.

A Different Direction

This post is not about quilting.....but rather about, not quilting.  Lately I have not had any desire to make anything with textiles, it seems that I have perhaps become a bit bored. I am not currently working on any pieces, I have no plans to enter any challenges or competitions....I simply seemed to have lost interest.

So, I have decided to learn something new. I have always been able to draw (sort of) but never explored much beyond plain pencil or a black marker.  I am intrigued by drawings where the medium is Pen & Ink with watercolour, I love the illustrative nature of it. I enrolled in this excellent online class through Craftsy, purchased a dip pen, nibs, black waterproof ink, proper paper, a pan of watercolour cakes and dove in.

I debated sharing my early work, but what the heck.....I am well aware that there are problems with each of them...BUT..... at the same time, I do believe that there is something successful happening with each piece as well......I realize that I am still rather heavy handed with the watercolour washes and really, REALLY need to work on that....practice....practice....practice

I am working from my own photos and thoroughly enjoying the process, here is a look at what I have done so far.

ink only

after the addition of watercolour

ink drawing

after the washes were added

forgot to scan the ink only version of this before adding the washes

inked

the finished drawing/painting