Echo Trail landscape - acrylic on panel

Last Friday I painted near Floyds Fork, just off Echo Trail.  It was a beautiful day to be out.  The landscape there is very nice; I will definitely go back for more.

This is acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches.  Most of it was painted on site, but then I finished it when I got home with some modifications and “polishing up.”  I cannot remember the last time I completed a painting all in one day.

My neck was sunburned by the time I went home.  It was foolish of me not to bring sun block, but fortunately I was wearing long sleeves and had a ball cap, so it could have been worse.

I joked elsewhere about seeing plenty of wildlife "...and most of it had eight legs and run up my pants."  However, apart from spiders and bumble bees and lots of birds chirping, I didn't encounter much.

in progress

completed

"You Are Allowed to Eat A Burger For Breakfast If You've Been Up All Night Fighting Crime"

 I was visiting friends last weekend when I saw this piece of art hanging in their house.  I learned that their teenage daughter, Anna, created it--a combination of hand drawn work, photography, and digital manipulation.  Besides the obvious subject matter, it is also a depiction of her and her father.  Anna kindly forwarded the digital file to me to post on my blogs.  It's not the first time I've been impressed by her work.  I am envious of her creativity.

Plein air walnut ink

This is my first time out to draw on my lunch break since the leaves were still green last year.  The busy autumn and long, cold winter had kept me in, but today it was sunny and in the upper 60s, so I decided I had to get out.

Unfortunately, it was also very windy.  After my tackle box blew over and my plastic ink tray blew away, I had to keep things closed and keep one hand on my supplies while I drew with the other.

I found a suitable group of trees as a subject over at E. P. Sawyer Park and sketched for a half hour or so using a bamboo pen and metal nib dip pen.  I think it's a decent start and I'll see how it looks after I spend a little more time filling it out at home.

Tree mural

This is a mural I recently spent a couple of days on.

Sycamores by the creek - acrylic on panel

Acrylic on panel. I finished this last night.

Pen and ink house portrait, black and white, 6 x 9 inches

I finished this drawing a couple of weeks ago, and just forgot to post about it.  This was a very nice house to draw; it has so many qualities that lend itself to a nice black and white drawing, such as contrasts in the trim, nice proportions, surrounding foliage, and a hedge-lined brick sidewalk receding dramatically to the front door.

Walnut ink house portrait

This is one I finished a couple of weeks ago. It's 11 x 15 inches, walnut ink on Bristol board.

A little sketch

A porch

7 x 10" House portrait, pen & ink

I particularly liked the angles of the eves on this house.

House portrait 8 x 10"

with two detail shots

House portrait, 8 x 10 inch

This is another drawing I finished the night before last (full image and a detail). About half way through I started feeling like I was on slightly shaky ground, but it all came together and now I am very happy with it.

2-point perspective

I spent quite a bit of time on the preparatory work on this because I made a significant change to the viewing angle.  The reference photos were from a lower vantage point. Fortunately, the task was made easier by the fact that the house's proportions are somewhat uniform.  I am pleased with how it's coming along, and I'm very glad to get past the pencil stage on this house and two others I'm working on right now. I can start inking!

House Portrait; preparatory work

Sketches and penciling in...

Twin house portraits

I finished the second of this pair a couple of days ago.

Pen and Ink House Portrait, 7 x 9 inches

I completed this one late last night. It’s smaller than the last one: 7 x 9 inches.  It was done with a combination of black Pigma Micron pens and sumi ink.

The commission calls for two  originals of the same house, so I am starting a duplicate drawing today.

Detail:

Black Walnut Ink House Portrait, 11 x 15 inches

This is on Bristol paper. I chose not to use any washes on this one; it's all cross-hatching.  I couldn't get the scan to go dark enough to pick up the shading on the sidewalk and pavement--you can barely see it, but it's a little darker on the actual drawing.

A couple of detail shots:

School Donor Recognition Wall Art (Mixed Media)

I posted work-in-progress photos of this project here over the summer, and finished it in August. However, it wasn’t until recently that I had a decent chance to get some photos of the finished product.

Late last spring I was commissioned to create artwork to honor donors to a school fundraising campaign.  The school wanted something similar to a tile mosaic piece they had seen pictures of online for a school in another state, depicting a stylized facsimile of the building’s façade with donor names in the windows.  They wanted the finished piece to be around 30 x 40 inches, and it would hang in the school lobby.

I considered attempting to duplicate the sample with a polymer clay mosaic, with lettering embossed in the clay tiles. However, after experimentation, I realized that I just didn’t have the means to emboss scores of names without going through an incredibly slow and mistake-filled process and, besides, I am very inexperienced in working with polymer clay.

So I finally decided to create a textured building exterior using acrylic gel mediums (I didn’t have much experience with various fancy gels, either, but I at least knew my way around acrylic paints and matte/gloss mediums.)

I was still puzzled how I was going to do the names, but I somehow stumbled onto acrylic transfers.  I had never heard of acrylic transfers before, but after a test I decided it might work well for the task.

I worked on panel, and used wood scraps and molding to imitate architectural details.  The stone texture was put on with Golden coarse pumice gel sealed with extra gel medium for durability; the plants are painted polymer clay; and the names are acrylic transferred photocopies.

Considering both size and complexity, this is probably the largest commission I have done and the most technically sophisticated project I have attempted.  I am pretty happy with the results, and the people at the school were, too.

I was very impressed with the Golden gel mediums I used, by the way.  Cool stuff, fun to work with.

Pen & Ink house portrait, with detail

Here is another house portrait done with black walnut ink.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to scan the drawing, and instead used my sub-par little camera. The detail shot turned out better because you can make out the texture of the line work.

This drawing is 11 x 15 inches on Bristol paper.

More pumpkin art

Emancipation Proclamation pumpkin art

Another sculpted pumpkin

I had a hard time with his teeth; his fangs just didn't work out.

Necromancing with the stars

Sent from my Motorola Smartphone on the Now Network from Sprint!

Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular

Here is another pumpkin I drew and carved. I am eager to see it lighted.

Third pumpkin drawing, last week

Pen and Ink House Portrait, 11 x 15"

...finished a few days ago, delivered today.

Jack-o'-Lantern Spectacular - work in progress

Work is under way. I wish I had more time to work on some pumpkins there, but maybe I'll be able to make some more time soon. Here is a shot of my second drawn pumpkin, and a photo of the work shed with other artists hard at it. I'm excited about seeing the final project, with everyone's creations illuminated in the woods at Iroquois.

Pen and ink house portrait closeup

...in its final stages. Maybe done tomorrow?

Pen and ink house portrait progress

 

 Another progress photo. I think this is coming along quite well, and hope to have it completed in the next few days.

 

A note: I am having trouble getting this image to display horizontally.  If this picture is up on its end, then you know I didn't figure it out and gave up trying.

House portrait in progress

Enjoying the foliage

Pumpkin drawing

Here is the first pumpkin I’ve worked on for the Jack-o’-Lantern Spectacular in October. I wasn’t quite done when I took the photo; there was still some shading to do on the right. I am eager to try some more. Paid…to do ink work…on pumpkins? Get outta my way.

Commission...in the final stretch

Nearly done! Working on the lettering via acrylic transfer. I've only tried that process once before, and it worked very well, but the potential for screwing up seems very high. My fingers are crossed.

Donor recognition art progress

It is coming along, slowly but surely.

School lobby commission progress

It is coming along...

Golden Coarse Pumice Gel Medium (a review)

 

 

I recently purchased a jar of Golden (a popular, well-respected brand) Coarse Pumice Gel Medium for use with a painting commission for artwork to be hung in a school.  I don't see many reviews of the product on the internet, so I thought I'd write a short one.

 

My project involves depicting the façade of a stone building on panel, and I was looking for something to mimic the rough stone texture.  I was happy to find Golden Coarse Pumice Gel at the art store.  There is also a Fine Pumice Gel and an Extra Coarse Pumice Gel, but this middle one looked like it would do the trick.

 

It's pretty gritty stuff, much like sand in a gel that's about the same consistency as toothpaste or dough for a cookie press.  I was worried that the coarseness would come at the expense of durability, which would be a problem if the artwork is hung in a high-traffic school lobby.

 

In fact, the medium does seem pretty durable and adheres well.  I learned that "over brushing" tends to spread out the medium too thin, so that there isn't a good acrylic-gel-to-pumice ratio, making it crumble off; however, if applied just a little thicker (and it can still be pretty thin), at seems to stick and harden quite well.

 

The medium is a neutral gray that looks more opaque while still wet; as it dries, the acrylic element turns transparent, just as with most gel mediums.  The pumice grit, of course, stays gray.

 

The gesso-primed panel I'm working on is pretty smooth, so getting an even application took a little figuring out, but I learned that getting the Coarse Pumice Gel on the brush, then dipping the tip of it in water, gave it just the right consistency to spread it on the way I want it.

 

After it dried, I applied a layer of Golden Semi-Gloss Regular Gel, a fairly heavy bodied medium, for a few reasons: 1) To increase the durability, because I imagine that, if it's within reach, school kids (and probably many adults) will be running their fingers over it to feel the texture; 2) To sort of level off the coarseness a little, so that it doesn't soak up as much paint when I start applying color;  and 3) To smooth out areas where the grit was just a little too gritty and coarse for the stonework being depicted.

 

I have never before done a piece like this (very textured with sculpted relief elements), so it has required quite a bit of planning ahead and testing. I created a small "proof of concept" in the way described above, and I was very happy with the result.  The Golden Coarse Pumice Gel Medium gets four stars out of four from me for the assistance it has given me in getting the effects I want.

Painting gladioluses

I’m working on a commission that I’ve decided to do primarily with acrylics.  I’ve used acrylics for many purposes, and use them frequently, but I actually haven’t attempted many complete “works of art” with acrylics alone.

This is not a photo of the commission work, but rather a smaller painting that I’m working on alongside of it, only in acrylic.  A couple of years ago I did an acrylic landscape that I was not satisfied with; this will be only my second full acrylic painting (not counting murals) since, oh, probably 1987.

This is also my first flower painting since the summer after high school. Ironically, the last floral I painted was also the first full painting I had ever done with oil paints.  I don’t normally go in much for flower paintings, but I love the glads that bloom in our yard each year and have sort of wanted to paint them.  Also, I hear they are popular, and I’d like to have another painting to display at the art fair later this month. (That’s another reason I chose acrylic: oils would never dry in time for the art fair.)

Works-in-progress

 

I have no new artwork of which to post photos, but I have been busy.  First, I'm signed on for my first art fair in late July, thanks to my cousin David.  I'm scrambling to get stuff together for it.  David is providing the tent and registration fees, but there has been a lot of other stuff for me to take care of.  Business paperwork, business cards, trying to figure out how to make displays, framing, and tent weights…I'm not sure it will be worth the effort unless I decide I like it and want to do it more.  I guess the odds are good I will, but I'm doing my best to keep expenses minimal because I have no idea what my odds are of just breaking even financially on this first show.

I am also working on a commission for Chance School for some donor recognition wall art.  I'm in the process of preparing a 30 x 40" piece of hardboard panel for a mixed media piece.  I'm working on an 8 x 10" piece as a test, a "proof of concept," to make sure some of my ideas for the commission are acceptable.

At the hardware store I had the 30 x 40" board cut down from a 4 x 8' sheet, in while the guy with the saw was at it I asked him to cut down the remainder into a lot of standard painting panel sizes (18 x 24, 16 x 20, 8 x 10).  I'm planning to work on some paintings as soon as I can, too, and it would be great to get one done before the art fair, but I might be biting off more than I can chew.

Old watercolor sketch

 Last night I was going through a box of stuff and found this little tree (about 6 x 9") that I did while playing with some watercolors.  I can't remember when I did it, but I think it was two or three years ago (Don't be misled by the date at the bottom, I put that on last night as an approximation.)  I had been searching for this, but couldn't find it and thought I must have given it away.  It's small and not sophisticated or great in any way, but it's one of the few things I've done with watercolors in decades and I liked the result.  I have been wanting to try watercolors lately, or use inks or acrylics for watercolor effects.