Surprise! Surprise!

I'm back from that deep, dark place that artists fall into when they get stuck in self-doubt, questions about their work, their thoughts, their processes and the art world in general.   That quick-sand-like place of dark depths that holds you as its prisoner, refusing to allow you any type of self-expression, swimming in black molasses.

I think I've finally surfaced. 

To wash all the sticky molasses from my limbs and to rinse away the same heavy goo from my thoughts, I've picked up a painting I started last year. 

It's acrylic.  11" x 14".  Last year, I'd applied heavy modelling paste for texture, then black gesso over that.  From then on, I'd fingerpainted in the background, the pads and the shadows under the pads.  (My earliest memories of making any kind of art are of fingerpainting!  I adored fingerpainting as a child.)  Then it was set aside. 

A few days ago, I brought it back up onto my painting table and started playing in it.  Rather than get discouraged with this type of fingerpainting, I finally picked up some brushes and used brushes for the highlights, more shadows, etc. 

Since this is more of a tribute to Monet than my own work, I'm thinking of collaging some large letters of M-O-N-E-T in the bottom right area.  Perhaps about two inches high....

I wasn't going to post this until it was finished but am tired of looking at my OLD blogger wall.  So, here it is ...............

PS - A few years ago, I was at an online demo by Allen Montague for fingerpainting!  Watch the fast demo below to get a hint of his work....

Have you ever heard Jordon John sing?

I'm listening to him right now, good and loud. Always makes me want to paint. Right now, I'm drawing out something of the Cheviot Hills in the Scottish Borders. Beautiful, beautiful place and seriously, that area can make 'me' fall to pieces! (But where in Scotland wouldn't?)

Jordon John, son of Prakash John who is of the legendary Lincolns, is one incredible singer. (Did I mention he was Canadian?)

I'm back from England and Scotland!

...with heaps and heaps of reference photos for so many paintings!  More to follow ....

In the meantime, I made a slideshow to show my PALS group the altered art scrapbook I'm working on and thought I'd post it here, too.  I took a really old, big, outdated atlas and painted the pages (a few at a time), then attached the photos, writing, bling and decorations.  I could have just mounted computer prints of sections of the journal notes I wrote each night of the trip but thought that handwritten notes would look more personal. 

I had a great time and loved the trip.  England was awesome but Scotland was my absolute favourite.  I dropped out of the trip over to Rome and instead stayed three extra days in Edinburgh!

Stuff ...

Don West is back at his blog at Idle Minutes. Unfortunately, his blog was hacked and he's had to start over so you won't see his past work but his future work is well worth visiting for! The painting above is NOT MY WORK. It's a beautiful postcard / painting that Don sent to me in June of last year after I won it at his blog. It's watercolour applied very thickly and it's of McClure Pass in Colorado. (There's a bit of a smudge above the mountain peak from the post mark but other than that, it came through the mail pretty good!)

I went to the Focus Art meeting last night where there was a great presentation by Gerald Swift, Co-Ordinator for Artwork at The Abbey for the Arts. Gerald walked us through a list of introspective questions about our artistic goals. He also gave us some invaluable insight into gallery workings and sales. Each of us there not only learned about selling our work but also about ourselves as artists.

I've always been (so far) one of those artists who does not want to sell their artwork. I have a full time job already and I just want to create art because I have this need to create. I know that I don't want to sell it because I cannot sell my own work and I learned last night that this is very common among artists. Maybe one day I will. But for now, I'm concentrating on creating only. There sure seems to be a lot of hassles in the selling process, though.

I'm hoping that once the warmer weather gets here, I'll be able to get out to the Abbey to maybe just sit and paint (if they allow that). It's a beautiful place.

For Teresa

My good friend, Teresa, asked a few questions that I thought I'd answer as a post rather than just answering in the comment section. (Teresa's blog is awesome. Go check it out!!)

Here are her questions;
Deb, what do you mean with gel "transferring"? I need to learn all the techniques you're using for these pages! I use a gel mat medium (deSerres brand) and sometimes soft gel glossy (Golden). Just paint it onto the page, lay a photocopy, printed copy or magazine page down, rub hard, wait for about 2 minutes, then rub off the back paper. You're left with an image on the page. It takes some practice though. I just ruined a photograph of my parents on their wedding day that I wanted to transfer onto a page. Grrrrr.

Also, why there's no the same risks with fluid acrylics than with normal ones? is it because they dry faster or what? When I painted the pages with the fluid acrylics, the paint dries to permanent just like regular acrylic paint. It won't lift at all. Being fluid acrylic, it can be treated like watercolour only while you're painting it and it's wet. After it dries, it's permanent. If I did the background pages with watercolour, and I used non-staining paints, think of the mess it'd make when I put something wet over it. There are ways of getting around it (i.e. using staining paints, putting on a light layer of varnish, etc) but I have all these fluid acrylics and thought it'd just be a whole lot easier to get where I wanted to get. Btw, fluid acrylics do dry faster than the watercolours also.

I wasn't too crazy about them when I first got them and tried them out but I'm slowly converting. Guess I don't take to change very easily. lol. But soon, I'll try Nick's way of painting again and see if I'm any better at it. (I've totally given up on that fluid acrylic waterlily. I cringe every time I look at it.)

aaaaah I need to know lol, sorry for pestering you with questions :) Tsk, tsk, tsk, Teresa! What a statement! You KNOW you never pester me! LOL!

Don't forget to check out Teresa's blog - Lost in Wonder. She's an incredible watercolourist!!! Look for her portrait of Tim Burton while there! Wow!

gel transfers

I've got some background work done on another journal page. It was done using gel transferring. I'm learning but I kind of like the grungy kind of colour in the three corners. The other colour (which was applied over one of the yellow pages) is fluid acrylic. I like using the fluid acrylics here so that I don't have to worry about it lifting in the many subsequent layers. Lots of collaging, layering, painting, writing and touching up to do here. I wasn't going to post this but thought I should just to show I'm back in the saddle again. lol

Also been working on another Japanese gate - drawing and transferring to w/c paper.

Now, off to work, then home again and then checking out blogs to see what you've all been doing!!!

A few more journal pages

This one says a lot about what I've been going through;














The pomegranite was collaged. I used pastels to create the soft halo around it. Unfortunately, you can't see the border very well.

The city was collaged, too. The darker spot of burnt orange and yellows is actually blended fibre medium. Kind of like a little canvas on which I'm going to paint something.