A box, some gift wrapping paper & a bit of washi tape

This little box is just the perfect size to keep my oil paint sticks in. But it looked rather plain, and in need of some colour.

So I took some lovely spring green gift wrapping paper and pasted it on with gel medium. Sounds easy, and it is, actually, but when you're as clumsy and ackward with everything gluey as me, it gets quite messy. But worth it. At least if you're not too bothered if it doesn't turn out completely smooth and perfect. Which it never does. At least not when I do it.

I had some Washi tape lying around which happened to be just the perfect colour for this. And a good chance to actually use it. So all around it went. I can never resist Washi tape when I see it in the shops, and I alreaday have a pile of it, but I always forget to use it, so it just lies around gathering dust most of the time.

Waiting for the gel medium to dry. Just ignore all the imprefections...

Looking much better now, despite all the little imperfections, and perfect for my oil sticks. I actually really enjoyed it, despite all the sticky mess, and now I have to look for some more boxes to past paper and tape on! And isn't this just the perfect excuse to mailorder some of those gorgeous patterned paper at Shepherds  Falkiners in London?! :)

Portraits #9 and #10, and playing the "name game" again

At last a couple of portraits again. They're #9 and #10, which means that I've done one tenth of my 100 portraits projects so far. Still a loooong way to go, but having completed 10 still feels good.

The first one is a quick pastel drawing.

"Olivia Night"

The second one another "sofa drawing" in my sketchbook. He somehow ended up looking a bit like the photo of a wanted person. Maybe it's the angle.

"Peter Ellis"

Anyway. I've remembered an old game I used to play when I was young, the "name game". When watching the telly, or a film, I used to make up a name for myself from all the names from the screen credits at the end . I'd choose the first first or last name I liked, and then added a first or last name accordingly, and then kept exchanging them with other ones I liked better, until at the end I'd have my "perfect" name. I've started playing my name game again in order to give my portraits names and a bit of a personality.

So here we are, meet Olivia Night and Peter Ellis. Olivia Night is in her early 40s and newly divorced. It's been a hard time for her, and she's let herself go a little bit. But slowly she's started pulling herself up again and thinking about what to do with the rest of her life. Peter Ellis is a bit of a romantic, and still lookig for "the one",  but he has recently noticed that his hair's thinning and that he's getting bald on top. And he's not happy about it. It makes him look older than he is, and much less attractive to the girls, he fears.

Rainy Sundays, a very slow computer & some everyday scribblings

I woke up to bright sunshine and warm spring temperatures this morning. And let me tell you, I was not happy about it. I'm not really much of a sunshine weather person, and I like my Sundays to be overcast, rainy and cool. Perfect staying-inside-all-day-weather. The weather forecast had predicted just such weather for today, and I was already afraid they had got it wrong, when finally, at around lunch time, the clouds came in, and the air cooled down considerably. I'm very pleased about it, and I'm sure there'll be some rain too later this afternoon. So now I can happily stay in and spend the rest of the day reading blogs, writing posts, do some painting, reading my book, without somehow always feeling guilty that I should really be doing something else, something more active somewhere outside. There's just nothing better than rainy Sundays and staying in :)

So I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer, and it's driving me mad. My computer is getting slower and slower, and I have no idea why. So while waiting for my computer to start up, open up files and Photoshop, get the internet connection running, I picked up the next best drawing medium lying around started scribbling around a bit.

And when Photoshop Elements finally was open, and the selected imaged opened and ready for processing, I was playing around a bit with one of the drawings. I think it looks really cool this way.

My good old laptop is really driving me completely mad now. But I've been thinking about buying a new computer for quite a while, and I think now is the right time. I've pretty much made up my mind to make the switch and buy an iMac this time.

Inspired by nature

Nature is probably my biggest source for inspiration. I love going out for walks in the woods, taking pictures, and just simply enjoy the colours, the stillness, the smells, the sounds. In this piece, I wanted to use the inspiration by using some of my photographs, to turn it into some kind of mixed media collage painting. It does not only remind me of precious moments in my local wood, my favourite seasons of the year (autum and winter), and an inspiring and creative trip abroad. But it also brings nature into my home so that I can enjoy the memories while I'm staying in.

I played around again with image transfer, this time not only using gel medium, but also transering on paint and gesso. Transering on gesso seems to give the best result, but it also means that the layer underneath is going go be white. In this case, it was not really a problem at all. Some of the images I just glued on the canvas rather than transfering it. I used acrylics and all kinds of things that gave texture reminding me of nature.

Unfortunately, I don't have any step by step images this time, as I did this last Saturday, in my painting teacher's studio, and I didn't bring my camera. We had class morning and afternoon, "free painting", i.e. everyone working for themselves, using their own ideas. I really enjoyed creating this canvas without the interruptions I'd have had at home, in a large, bright studio, with lots of inspiration around, and most of all, the good company of my fellow painter friends.

I painted this on a piece of left over canvas, about 37x67cm. Now I'll have to buy some strips of wood to stretch it on, and a frame to frame it in. And then find a place on the wall to hang it on. Which most likely will be the most difficult bit of it all.

Unfortunately, I broke one of my favourite brushes. Which was pretty new on top of it, which makes it even more annoying. Luckily, I had another one which is almost the same size. And now I'm thinking about turning my broken brush into some kind of necklace or key ring or something. Can't waste a good brush now, can you :)

It's Friday, and therefore time to party! 

Happy Paint Party Friday!

On my palette: pretty much everything, really. Or: the fascinating world of paints & pigments

I had meant to do this for some time: colour charts., examples of paint into my sketchbook for reference It's good to know what's in your paintbox, and how the colours actually look on paper, (often quite different than in the tube), and how they mix and match which each other.

So finally, I took out all the paint tubes...

... and started painting small squares of colour examples and mixing them to get an overwiev of what's in my paintbox, adding some information about pigments, opacity, and of course their names. I find paints and pigments a most fascinating subject.

Pigments were traditionally made by grounding natural substances, such as plants, stones, minerals, insects and animals and, according to some myths(?) even cow piss (Indian Yellow). Modern pigments are mostly manufactured synthethically. The Colour Index International (CII) is a standard for identifying pigments used in manufacturing colours.

Hue Pigments: Some single pigment colours, such as Cadmium Red for example, are also available in a "hue" version, such as Cadmium Red Hue. These hue colours are mixed pigment substitutions of the original colour. Maybe the original colour is very expensive, or that it's lightfastness is not so good, and a substitute can therefore be useful. (See here and here for some more information).

Lake pigments: Pigments are usually made by grounding a substance which can then be mixed with a binder to make paint. But some substances can't be turned into pigments, they can only produce dyes. In order to produce pigments from dyes, the dye has to be fixed on to a carrier before it can be mixed with a binder to turn it into paint. These pigments made of dyes are called lake pigments. A well-known lake pigment is Rose Madder Lake, made of the madder plant. It's synthetic form is known as Alizarin Crimson. Paint names can often be very confusing, as they often have a whole range of different names. It also seems that for watercolours, the older, more traditional names are preferred (such as Rose Madder or Chinese White for example), while in acrylics, it's all the new and often fancy-sounding name (Alizarin Crimson, Zinc White).

I was somewhat surprised to find out that Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna are all made of the same pigment (PBr 7, Brown Iron Oxide). That the two Umbers and the two Siennas are made from the same makes of course perfect sense. But the Umbers and the Siennas look quite different, so I assumed it would be different pigments. But there you go. It's not just the pigment itself that makes the colour, it's the whole chemistry behind them too. And I've never been particularly good at chemistry, I'm afraid...

My palette was getting more and more colourful during my colour sample progress. I should definitely clean it one of these days. But I think it looks rather cheerful at the moment.

I really do find colour, pigments, the making of paints, an extremely fascinating topic. I recently read Philip Ball's wonderful book Bright Earth, the most fascinating book on the topic, I think, and one of my absolute favourites. How lucky we are today that we can just walk into a shop and pick and choose from a whole range of colours which conveniently come in tubes and pots of various sizes. No limited palette, no toxic paints, no sheeps' bladders to keep your paints from drying out (I'm forever grateful to the guy who intenved the metal tube in the 19th century!!). 

Now of course you can ask if it is really necessary for an artist to know all about the hsistory and chemistry of paints and pigments. The answer is no, not really. You can happily paint and create magnificent pictures all your life whithout having the least idea about what's in your paint or how they are made. But then it doesn't hurt to know a bit more about our paints, which are, after all, the most important part of every painter's equipment. Personally, I find it very useful to know more about my paints. It helps me understand them better, and to appreciate and value them even more, knowing their history and origins. (It was also very interesting to learn, for examples, that all the big chemical and pharmazeutical companies that are around here in the north of Switzerland and in neighbouring south Germany started as dye manufactures. Producing dye was a big and important business for centuries, and artists' pigments really just their by-product).

At times, I had been frustrated with my paints. It looks lush and deep and opaque in the tube and on my palette, but on canvas or paper, it turns transparent, thin and several shades lighter. Why can't all they all just have the same consistency? The same opaqueness? And just look on paper as they look in the tube? Well, you can get that if you buy cheap paints with next to now pigments in them. But good paints have lots of pigments in them, and pigments are made up of all kinds of materials and sources,  and often in complacated processes, and therefore they behave differently. And knowing about the different properties of different pigments also allows you to use them in different ways, taking advange and making the best of their different qualities. Learning more about all these things hasn't changed what or how I paint, but it has certainly changed my relationship with my paints.

You can listen to Philip Ball talks about The Chemistry of Painting and look up detailed information about all pigments in The Color of Art Pigment Database. It really is fascinating!

Hop over to Palette & Paint to see what everyone has on their palette!

Fine feathers & funny birds

It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds

(Aesop)

No, indeed it is not. Scribbler makes pretty fine birds too. Or fun birds, at least :)

If you don't now Scribbler yet, you simply have to try it out. But be warned: it's addictive!

A rosy palette of watercolours and a new drawing board

I've been thinking about getting this drawing board for a while, and when the artist materials shop had a 20% sales offer, I couldn't resist. It arrived last week. It's made of MDF, lovely light colour, and a good 50x70cm size.

I had to immediately try it out, of course. So on went a piece of watercolour paper, and out came the water colour paint boxes.

The Sketchbook Challenge's theme for February was "Close up" and this month, I wanted to participate in the challenge (after having had to give the doodles a miss last month). I found a photograph of pretty rose, a close up of the centre of a rose. Perfect for the theme and for the watercolours. A quick sketch of the subject, although not being bothered about copying it one hundred percent. For the rose, I wanted a rosy pink palette - the perfect opportunity to try out those fabulous pink paints I had bought a few weeks ago.

I started with a palette of Permanent rose, Magenta and the rather extravagant and very dramatic Opera rose.

As the rose was slowly developing, some more colours were needed for shading and especially for the deep shadows between the petals. I added some Madder lake deep, Permanent carmine, Quinacridone violet and Indigo (don't you just love Indigo? Such a gorgeous colour) to mix some deeper reds and purples.

I also used some Permanent Chinese white at the end, for some highlights, as I ended up with too many layers of paint, and almost none of the white paper shining through for natural highlights, as usual. I do love the light and transparent look of watercolour, but I always end up with far too much paint  and very little transparency on mine. The Chinese white didn't really work, of course. It looks great when applied, while it was still wet, but it is transparent, so once dry, there wasn't much left of it. So I used a white ink pen at the end, to add some highlights, which didn't really work too well either. Where the Chinese white is too transparent, the ink pen is a bit too opaque here.

It was good to take those watercolours out again. It's been a while. And it was also good to try and do some botanical painting again (something I want to do much more often), even though I'm not overly happy with the result. Still need a lot of practice with those watercolours. But I like my new drawing board :)

Linking this up with the wonderful and inspiring Paint Party Friday and Palette & Paint. 

Do have a look at the contributing artists there, it's simply fabulous and so rewarding.