Sunday, September 28, 2008

If I post this, I'll finish it!

So, I'm going to post what's done so far, then keep up with the progress. It's been stashed away in my studio closet for almost two years now - I actually started it at the old place before we moved. (Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.) About a month ago, I took it out and leaned it against the wall, where I"ve been studying it since. Now, I want to finish it!

Here's what I have done so far .........

(I'd like to mention that it was Rhonda Carpenter who showed myself and a few other online pals this technique, though I don't think I followed the online directions very well. lol.)




















The shot above shows the masking fluid on and sprayed. In Rhonda's technique, I don't think I was supposed to actually mask out shapes.




















I used these pastel blenders to apply the masking fluid. They're excellent for that. Soft tips that won't scratch the paper at all and it's so easy to peel off the dried mask from them. I use Pebeo Drawing Gum to mask.




















The shot above shows the painting with red paint and yellow paint poured on and mixing on the paper. It's a messy job but fun.




















After the yellow and red paint dried, I poured blue paint on then let it dry completely. In the shot above, you can see that the blue was still wet when I shot the pic.



















Now, here's another spot where I kind of messed up. In the overall finished painting that I had (and still have) envisioned in my mind, I wanted some rocks and things on the ocean floor. So I painted some in before I removed the mask. You can't really tell what they are now. But they looked good in my vision. lol. I'll work around that and fix them up later. The second mistake was attempting to make the very upper section look like water as seen from below. Didn't work. But .... I'll work around that too and fix it up.

I've since added some burnt sienna on the jelly fish and will photograph that a bit later on. Right now, I want to go on the Apples and Arts tour (a studio tour) here in town. Yesterday was a work day so it's today or forget it.

Two years ago, I was in the tour, all alone at the Cornwall Regional Art Gallery. As a first-timer, and alone, I found it extremely intimidating. For next year, I've been invited to participate with several other artists at one stop, which is very tempting. Maybe.

Some days, Blogger works wonderfully well. Others, you can edit and edit and EDIT until you get it to layout properly. This is one of those days! So if there's a lot of spaces between photos and descriptions, it's not because I haven't tried to fix them. Grrrrrrrrrr.........

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Brush Space

I thought I'd post about a site I subscribed to a few days ago called Brush Space. It's a free site and a wonderful place to get your work "out there". I've been having such fun exploring the work of the many artists there! Best of all, it's really been inspiring me to paint - actually, I'm just itching to paint and that's a good thing. If you're an artist interested in joining and need an invite, just email me at ca_riverdancer at yahoo dot ca. (Replace the "at" and the "dot" with the symbols - putting it this way keeps the evil trolls from spamming me to death.) I have a few invites left. If you're not interested in joining and want to see lots of eye candy, go visit!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Fiery Heart Won First Prize!!

Ohhhhhh, I'm so tickled! I checked into EBSQ on my lunch hour, to see if the voting had been tallied and what did I find? Fiery Heart took first place, which is referred to there as Member's Choice. I received a ribbon which is my 7th now from EBSQ and a cash prize of $50, which - due to Amie's top-notch diligence, I've already received into my paypal account! (The shows at EBSQ have a "Chip-In" feature and if the 'kitty' is less that $50, Amie (aka EBSQ) tops it up to $50. (You can also win more if the 'kitty' is more than $50 - when I won the Repurposed show, I won $600, paid the very same day as the announcements - Amie is fast!)

EBSQ is a great group to join and I can't say that enough. (Not just because I won, either! I love it even when I don't win!)
If you went to EBSQ and voted for me, thanks very much! If you didn't, you really should check it out!