Unmasked

Well here it is... unmasked and untouched. There are some things I like and some I don't. Because the mask was left on this for longer than normal, some of the color got lost. That's not always a bad thing... I'm really liking the muted colors in the weeds and the bow on the right. The problem is I'm not sure they go with the subject. The boat on the left needs strengthening. I need to decide.... make everything stronger.... brighter or just work on adding more dimension to the boat on the left. The piece will now hang on the clip on my studio wall for a week or so.... the answer will present itself somewhere along the line. Meanwhile, I'll go on to something else... take my mind away from this one until it's ready to tell me what to do.

final pour and a print

Here is the final pour... you can see that it's almost all mask and looking a mess but this week I'll be removing that mask and I'll see if I got what I wanted. If I don't like it there are things I can do to save it but that's getting ahead of myself. I'll show you the result even if I'm not happy with it... and if that turns out to be the case, I'll show you what I'll do to save it.

Meanwhile... printmaking... something else I'm playing with and the pears are the first print I pulled... the very light color on the pears is not from the print... I added that because I had a mat and frame that fit but it's a cream color and didn't look right... since I'm not going to be selling this piece it doesn't have to be authentic so I used a light touch of colored pencil to make the pears match the mat....

pouring demo continued

This week I've continued getting ready for my pouring demonstration. Here are pours 2, 3 and 4. Each time I mask a little more using pebeo drawing gum. If you haven't used it... use only old, cheap brushes and the gum ruins them. Don't use natural bristles... they really get messed up in a hurry. I first dip the brush in dawn dishwashing liquid, wipe off the excess, then into the masking fluid. I like the pebeo because it's grey... I can see where I put it. I've also posted a photo of the tray I pour into and you can see the bottles I use... some I buy, some I get from friends who dye their hair. I also pulled some prints this week but haven't photographed them yet. I'll post them when I do. They're the first I've done and I'm quite thrilled with them

The next two steps

Now that the drawing is done and scanned, I blow it up and transfer it to tracing paper. Then I turn the tracing paper over and transfer the image to my watercolor paper... this way my paper is free of smudges, eraser markings, just general sketchy stuff. In this instance I didn't want any white so I did a first wash... pour using a very watered down aureleon yellow and a bit of cobalt. For this piece I'll only use those two colors and some permanent rose. After the paper is dry... completely dry, I put the first mask on... the piece isn't as orange as it looks in this image. In order for the drawing to show at all I had to darken everything.... the color is actually very pale, almost white.

Preparing for a painting

This week I've been drawing, primarily the prep work for a painting. I'll be doing a demo later this month and I need to get some of the steps done ahead to show the step by step process. The first step is do work out the values and do a careful drawing. I don't want to do the drawing on my watercolor paper because I don't want erasers so I do a very careful drawing in my sketchbook. This is it....

This Week it's a church project

I did two pieces this week.... the majority of my time was spent on a backdrop for the children's pagent at our church... in addition to painting the backdrop, mountains had to be constructed to rise above the backdrop.... I had help with those and they're made from cardboard. The second project didn't take nearly as much time... another pen and ink drawing that will eventually become a printing plate... two cherubs with a secret...