Beginnings

During the course of a year (or almost), I have worked on a large canvas, which as far as I’m concerned, is now finished.    It started out as something entirely different, this is it’s story:

Early beginnings= 120x100cm stretched canvas – primed with white gesso.

I used stencils, collaged symbols that had been monotyped onto tissue paper, old Rune words, celtic designs, charcoal. It was worked in inks, acrylics and soft pastels (I used Golden pastel ground over most of the surface).  I based it on a false colour image of one of my own photos that I took of a tree in a local wood. It stayed in its ‘tree’ form for a long time, driving me nuts.

RUBY TREE – first rendition

In a fit of desperation, I painted over the entire thing one night using red paint and white gesso and left it for a few weeks before starting on it again.

For its second ‘outing’, I decided to try and recreate a similar scene to another painting of mine, this time using acrylics and watercolours (I eventually also ended up using soft pastels).

I used structure gel, modelling paste, crackle paste on the surface for the tree trunk and this is still visible in the final painting (at bottom of this post).

It was taking shape and full of colour …

It almost ended up kinda how I wanted it but something was bothering me, so after a while of staring at it with contempt, it got painted over. I looked at the surface for a long time and then got out the earth pigments – a LOT of earth pigments. I used nearly my entire stash of earth pigments and the surface is very heavily textured. Nice.

It stayed in the earth pigment state for a long time. I received very good comments on Instagram and elsewhere but I hated it. I felt it was boring, didn’t have any structure or point and was dull and lifeless. However, something in it kept calling out to me.  So today, I ‘had a go’ and managed to coax that ‘something’ out … I am now happy with it.T

This is the final rendering:

‘Beginnings’ 120x100cm mixed media and earth pigments on stretched canvas

This has gone through many stages of redaction, as well as most of the techniques mentioned in the course notes (scraping back, spraying etc. etc.).  I have used earth pigments, inks, high-flow acrylics, isopropyl alcohol and water.   The texture created when I used various pastes (including crackle paste) as still clearly visible in the sky area and further down the picture plane. I have not sealed it yet.  

What does it mean for me?

Artists are supposed to articulate what drives them to create a specific painting – what resonates with them? I am always nervous of putting forth how I feel about my work, in case this clashes with how other people see it and somehow changes its meaning. There are a lot of factors at play in my mind when I create something large like this painting.

• It is me screaming out to the world that I ‘have’ to work large and that when I do, I can create stuff that is appealing. I suppose it is a big of a desperate cry, because i do not have a studio space that in any way supports the creation of large pieces of work. It’s my way of trying to make ‘universe’ listen and send some kindly soul along who will gift (or lend) me a barn!
• I do not do ‘representational’ work, I am process driven. However, I DO want to create images of places that I half remember or have stayed buried somewhere in my soul.
• Wilderness areas most affect me and the more I look at my work, I can see these places coming out all the time – from the Highlands of Scotland, to Iceland and Norway and other places that are wild and expansive. I also have a great love for forests and woodland, there’s nearly always some sort of tree symbol somewhere in my work.
• Working with earth pigments and other things like inks, enables me to coax out abstract landscapes that I feel a connection with. I know that they have also influenced other people and this is really inspirational for me.

‘Sapphire Tree’ – mixed media on a recycled canvas panel.

I used an old fracture-pour painting that I’ve never liked.

I then smothered it in Galeria heavy structure gel, which I had tinted with some resin inks (gold and metallic yellow) – this gave it a very soft buttery colour, mimicking the colour of beeswax.

When it was dry, it looked like this:

I then built up more texture with another coat of the gel, after I’d applied a tissue paper stencil of a Celtic symbol.

I dripped tiny little specks of Golden fluid acrylic onto the surface and sprayed with water and some iso-alcohol. I moved it all around a lot, spraying where I wanted the paint to go into the fissures and folds of the dried gel. I used Phthalo Blue and White fluid acrylic. This stuff is fabulous paint. When it was dry, I sculpted the surface with a tiny tweezer (I couldn’t find anything sharp that was tiny – so used the mini-tweezers).

‘Sapphire Tree’ – gels, pastes and fluid acrylics on a canvas panel – 20 x 20cm

I really like how this has come out – I was aiming to mimic the look of an encaustic painting and I think it’s been successful.

New things

I am working on quite a few different things all at once. This is an experimental abstract piece, using inks and soft pastels.

‘You’ll remember me’ Soft pastels and inks on Pastelmat A3

The coursework for Painting 2.1 (Ideas Lab) through OCA is really fun and I’m having a great time messing about with stuff that I wouldn’t normally do. Here are a few images of latest work that was done using various media on canvas panels and monotyped paper – Glitch.cam app, encaustics, shellac, soft pastels, acrylic enamels, polyfilla, inks, tracing paper, A3 Lightbox …

Digital Felling

Not what it seems

Pull Up a Seat

Boudicca’s Way v1

Down but not Out

Encaustic trees and leaf

Boudicca’s Way v2

Boudicca’s Way v3

Mixed media on canvas

This is a piece I did recently on a recycled canvas, which had been previously treated to considerable abuse (i.e. covered in concrete and God knows what else). I used soft pastels, inks, pens and then decided to use black acrylic enamel for two of the tree trunks, as I wanted a really black, black for the trunks. I was told that this appears to be a bit on the sinister side, that wasn’t my intention when I did it but I can see that now. Anyway, it’s larger than most of the stuff I’ve done lately.

Dark and light in the forest – mixed media on stretched canvas

I’m also using this post to test out whether it connects and posts to my FB/ Instagram feed. Who knows hey?!

Recycle Upcycle Refurbish – Pastel study

I obtained some more soft pastels over Christmas, as well as a 36 colour set of Mont Marte H2O watermixable oils. I’ve been practising with both mediums this past week – doing two versions of the same scene, one using soft pastel and the other with oils, to see how well I can get a good result. One thing that’s becoming obvious is I have a far better grasp of it with soft pastels than I do with oils!

One of the comparison studies I did today, involved the use of a reworked pastel study. I took the earlier pastel practise piece and rubbed the surface pigment off as much as i could, leaving a kind of underpainted base to work on, to which I added some white …

I then completed a moody landscape from a photo I took a few years ago.

‘Evening storm over the fields’ Soft pastel on refurbished Pastelmat

I’m really pleased with how this turned out. I have done an oil version of this same scene, which is drying at the moment. I’m not happy with that at all but I’ll do some more work on it tomorrow and maybe I can get it right, then will post on here to show the difference between the two techniques – soft pastel on Pastelmat and watersoluble oils on Arches oil paper.

WIP x 2

I’m busy trying my very best to do art every day at the moment, it doesn’t always end up being anything I can display on here but I’m working, that’s the main thing. in any event, I am busy with these two pieces at the moment, they are both about 50cm x 40cm on repurposed stretched canvas (that was a process in and of itself let me tell you!).

‘Out there somewhere’ WIP 50x40cm mixedmedia on stretched canvas

‘Out there somewhere 2 WIP 50X40cm mixed media on stretched canvas

I have used acrylics, pastels, inks, alcohol, red tissue paper collage. The tissue paper was used by OCA (Uni for Creative Arts) to package up my coursework manual. I knew i’d find a good use for it one day.

Playing with Batik wax

I am finding myself drawn to cold wax paintings as well as encaustic painting techniques – I think I am more ‘in love’ with the idea of encaustic work, as it seems that the depth of colour obtained in some of the works I’ve seen lately online, is really spectacular. While I was looking into cold wax techniques, I bought a small tub of what I thought was cold wax to use as a painting medium. It is cold wax but used primarily for batik work, which I didn’t realise until I started trying it out a few months ago (with no success whatsoever) It looks like this …

Cold wax … er, not really.

I suppose this is yet another reason why buying art equipment from Amazon or eBay is sometimes not the best solution. I should have gone to … (no, not Specsavers but maybe Jacksons or SAA).

Anyway, to cut a long story short. As I left B&Q on Saturday morning (we’d gone to get some plants, as the nurseries are now open), I stopped at their ‘off-cut’ bin and grabbed a couple of pieces of wood. I thought it might be useful to use these bits of scrap wood to try out both encaustic and cold wax work, as I’ve tried tiles and paper and I think wood is the best support for both types of wax painting. I chose a piece of (I think) veneered wood, not sure ‘cos my knowledge of wood is rather non-existent. But it seemed like a good enough size to try out the cold wax medium and oils.

I started off squiggling with charcoal vine stick and then applying yellow oil to the surface, just to see if it would actually go onto the board without smearing off straight away. I didn’t prime the board. Then I thought I should edge it with some tape, so that at the end I’d have a neat finish to the ‘painting’, however it turned out. I used a glass palette (it’s an old photo frame that I’ve reinforced the edges of with tape, so I don’t cut myself).

glass palette with a big splodge of cold wax medium

Then I dolloped a sizeable amount of the wax medium onto the palette and started playing about with the colours, applying to the board and just messing about. I didn’t have a plan or composition, I was just having fun with the texture.

building up paint

For the most part, I used a plastic palette knife to apply the paint, which is both easy and hard, depending on how thick the paint is, or how smooth you want it to be.

texture of the paint

Whilst I was enjoying plastering on the paint, I was not happy with the bumpy clumpy finish. So, I got out my craft iron. Well, it’s oil paint and medium, a bit of heat should smooth it out, right?

after applying heat from a craft iron.

The iron smooshed up the paint, making it smooth in some areas and then when I lifted the iron I got a vein like texture (in the front of the image above) – similar to how encaustic paint works on paper when heated with an iron. I thought that was quite cool but decided to put the iron away, else I’d end up burning the whole thing. I waited for it all to dry and noticed that certain parts of the paint had dried to a dull matt finish. I tried polishing with a tissue but that didn’t do anything. I then decided to apply a coat of the cold wax to fill in the grooves (even out the lumpiness) and see if it would create a surface lustre.

cold wax applied

I left it overnight and then buffed it up with a soft cloth and kitchen towel, it did come up to a soft sheen.

‘Cold wax landscape’ viewed in full sunlight and back lit

The finished landscape reminds me of a day, a few years ago, when I was out in the sun roaming around with my family. We were hiking in the Southern Drakensberg. Weird how that memory rose to the surface in this little painting.

Conclusions

• If I’m going to develop cold wax painting anymore, I need to get the right wax – Gamblin or Dorland and also a primer/gesso to use on the board before starting the painting.

Cold Wax vs Encaustic – the big debate I’m having right now with myself.

• I know that I am more inclined towards encaustic wax work and feel that this is the medium best suited to how I work. I want the layers, not the clomping thick impasto effect that I’ve ended up with in this cold wax exercise.
• Cold wax is easier to set up, safer to work with and I basically have all I need to get going – besides the correct wax.
• Encaustic equipment is expensive, there is specific stuff that needs to be bought:
  • I already have a kitchen appliance that was bought to keep food warm but hardly used, which might work to keep tins of encaustic paint and medium warm. If it doesn’t then, I’ve seen an electric griddle with thermostate (very important) for about £30, which isn’t too bad.
  • I have seen tins at our local homeware shop that could be used to hold encaustic medium and they have lids.
  • I’m not keen on getting a butane torch, ‘cos I’m a klutz sometimes and worry I would end up setting fire to the house. I wonder if i can justs get away with using a craft heat gun? I would also need a small fire extinguisher.
  • Ampersand boards are the professional choice for encaustic work. R&F have a starter set that includes sample boards to try, as well as wax and paints. However, I quite like the idea of reclaiming scrap wood from B&Q and doing my bit for recycling.
  • Encaustic medium is pricey, so are the paints but it looks like they are used sparingly and the layers built up slowly, which is what I’m going for. Also, things can be embedded in the layers – like leaves, fabric, papers etc. etc.
  • I have plenty of hair brushes, so wouldn’t have to go out and buy more to start off with.

Maybe before I invest in the encaustic studio equipment, I should first get the correct cold wax and have a few more practises with that – perhaps with more knowledge and the correct equipment, I can get a smooth, layered, translucent effect on a board with cold wax?

Doodling

 

“In the field”

10″ x 8″

Acrylics, Inks, collage, gels, gold foil on acrylic canvas board/panel.

Close ups of texture:

I’ve been in a bit of the creative doldrums since I returned from South Africa, artistically speaking.  Pottering about with clay hasn’t really helped, it’s just made me work small and that’s not what I’m about.  I decided yesterday that I needed to put all the clay away and get back to er ‘making art’ … lest I forget how.

Again, I’m working small, so I wasn’t feeling very confident.   I started working with tissue and forming the texture, the ground … I wasn’t really sure where I was going other than I wanted the little panel to express a feeling of wide open space and emotional depth.     Then I got to thinking about the other evening when my daughter and I were travelling home from doing our shopping.   It’s almost harvest time here and the wheat and barley in the fields is very high, golden brown and thick.   In this vast expanse of golden beige, there he was just popping his head out of the grasses to have a look around.  So he became the inspiration for this final bit of rather naive collage.

I hope to be able to get going with a very large canvas I have sitting around downstairs next week, it’s calling to me.

Abstract multimedia

 

On the wall                                                                                            Close up of texture

Small stretched canvas – 8″ square.

Materials: Pébéo special effects paints, irridescent acrylic medium, recycled plastic (heat-formed and painted then applied to canvas).

I would appreciate comment, if you have the time, on any of the posts that you like.