Category Archives: Materials

A figurative and an interior collage, for more fun

I wandered off on my own again and created a collage based on a photo from ‘back in the day’ when two of my little sisters, Susan and Mary, were swimming in the back yard pool (pre Hurricane Camille). I’ve always loved that photo and had earlier done a fairly abstracted version on the iPad. After my collage class, I decided to do a second version using the paired color technique I’d learned from Rotem Amizur.

A hard thing about this method is that Rotem encourages us to use whatever papers we still have on hand, rather than painting new ones that hew more closely to the reference underlying the image we’re trying to create. Here, that hot pink on the two girls is jarring, but . . . whatever.

I’ve been trying to paint more interiors lately, so I decided to try a collage construction based on the view of our living room from the kitchen table. The first cut was pretty dreary, so I layered up the background with a bright pink. Granddaughter Maya was around as I was critiquing the first version and she too agreed I needed a hot pink wall in the background, rather than the lavender I had already used.

Living room in wonky colors and with an imagined painting on the wall beyond the windows.

More collages.

I took a second zoom workshop with Rotem Amizur which focused on still life collages. This one was less intense than the first and I produced less work, but this time I was working ‘from life’ based on a simple still life arrangement: plastic watering can; two lemons; and a small orchid (that I pumped up in the collages using artistic license.

I then made a second collage of the same set-up, using a different selection of paired colored papers to represent lights and darks. Do you have a preference?

Next, for an added challenge, I did a collage of one of my special ceramic pieces, filled with twigs from the beautiful Chinese maple tree in my front yard.

Catching up with collages posted elsewhere.

With more apologies to my Facebook friends who’ve probably seen these before, I want to post some collages I produced during a zoom-based workshop with Rotem Amizur, a fabulous Israeli artist. Key tasks included painting two contrasting layers of acrylic paint on each of a large stack of paper; selecting three or four sets of lighter and darker papers to represent light and shadow in different areas of the reference photo; and then cutting and arranging pieces of those papers to interpret the reference image in a collage. Here are two sets of paper selections I used in a couple of exercises:

Rotem had us select a couple of ‘old master’ paintings to use as our references. I started with a portrait of Matisse, followed by his portrait of his wife. I did one of Matisse and then a number of variations of Mrs. Matisse, some looking at the reference image or an earlier collage and others relying on just my memory of what Mrs. Matisse looked like. It was fun to get wilder and more abstract with each iteration, as we had to come up with a focal theme that didn’t duplicate an earlier collage.

And here are a few progress shots, showing the method of pinning the paper pieces, which were glued to each other in the final stage.

This was an exceedingly fun and challenging workshop — so good that I took a second one from Rotem a few months later. See the next post!

Paintings 24 & 25. Mock ‘Frescoes’ of Gouache Painted into Damp Plaster

I’m currently taking a class on mixed media and was intrigued when teacher Susan Hostetler mentioned “mock frescoes”, made by painting gouache into still-damp spackle or joint compound slathered onto cardboard or other heavy substrate.  I decided to try it.  My first attempt was a simplistic sugar bowl sitting on our kitchen table.  My quick contour was misshapen, so I touched it up with some water-soluble pencils, moistening the marks to blend them into the gouache.

I then plopped down a seashell (interesting shape though dull colors) and tried again.  I was happier with that one, though disappointed when a little flake popped out sometime later.  Maybe a fixative would deter this type of defect — will have to research it. . . .

 

Painting #22 – Birds in the Backyard and a CMYK Palette

My most recent small painting features some bright cardinals showing off among their Plain Jane pals.  It was based on photos taken last year.  Our feeder is empty and there are few birds to watch now.  (Our neighborhood has been encouraged not to use feeders so birds won’t gather and spread a new virus among themselves.)

For the artists who are reading, this painting was an experiment in “cmyk” colors — a very limited palette of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.  This group of colors is used with great success in color printing, but it’s pretty rare to see it underpinning an oil painting or water-based art.

For this attempt, I used the closest hues in my paint stash:  manganese phthalo, quinacridone violet, azo yellow and ivory black.  I managed to mix everything in the painting without resorting to additional colors ~~ other than the male cardinals, for which I dipped into cad red.  I can’t say I enjoyed the experience or like the outcome!  I’m not sure whether I’ll try it again!

#22. Birds in the Backyard. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8″ x 10″

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Painting #10 – Cauliflower in Watercolor and Gouache

One of my collectors has bought three of the veggie watercolors I painted last year as a consequence of a workshop with Wendy Artin. And she wants a fourth so she can group them in her kitchen. What to do? A pretty cauliflower was in our fridge so this is how I spent my evening in front of the TV. . . .

I made a few mistakes since I was painting it direct — without a pencil sketch, as Wendy had taught. So I resorted to a bit of gouache so I wouldn’t have to start over!!

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Drawing the Line

With some of my 7Palettes friends, I’m studying plein air painting with Carol Rubin this Spring.  Last week, it was too chilly to paint outdoors, so we made line drawings of a complex still life Carol had assembled.  Here’s a ‘line drawing’ made of oil paints.  Our warmup exercises follow.

Hat, Vases & Vegetation

hat, vases & vegetation. oil on canvas.

Two 30 second drawings.

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bottle, pot & dried hydrangea. charcoal pencil on vellum.

Thirty second hat and more.  charcoal on vellum.

hat and more. charcoal pencil on vellum.

A minute-long ‘continuous line’ drawing — made without taking the pencil off of the paper.

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hat, pots & plants. charcoal pencil on vellum.

A ‘blind contour’ — made while keeping eyes on the object.  NO looking at the paper!  (Well, maybe we got to take three short peeks. . . .)

no looking at the vegetation???  charcoal on vellum.

no looking at the scribblings??  only the objects???  charcoal on vellum.

And finally, as depicted above, we made complex line drawings in black paint and then brushed thick white paint over selected areas to ‘erase’ lines as needed to make the ‘drawing’ more accurate or more interesting.  A fun day.  I did more at home using my own props.  Will post those next time.