PORTLAND DEMOS DAY 3: LINE!!! AND A SLIDE SHOW!!!!!

As luck would have it, my draw paired TEXTURE as a secondary element with LINE as the primary element.  These just happen to be my two favorite elements.  Here are my demos for the day.

The first painting is done on YUPO.  I used watercolor crayons, watercolor sticks and Dr. Martin Hydrus liquid water color straight from the dropper full strength.  Then I spritzed and sprayed with water and alcohol.  I am very pleased with the results.  I will work with this idea again!

The second painting was drawn on top of  an old painting that had been collaged with different hand painted tissue papers.  I used a Daniel Smith watercolor stick, a Stabilo watercolor crayon and acrylic inks.   I will be developing this combination of materials more in the coming months.

The class did some exciting work today.  Everyone is very engaged in the process.  I love when everyone gets into the spirit of experimenting and trying new things.  Sometimes what doesn't turn out is the best lesson.

I finally found a new place to create a slide show.  Thank you, Photobucket!!!!  Here are the paintings from day two dealing with shape and texture.

DAY 3 VARIATIONS WORKSHOP: LINE SLIDE SHOW

Wednesday featured the element of LINE in all its manifestations, including perceived line. You can see texture is sneaking in although Friday is our Texture element day. I think I infect people with the texture virus. Watch out! I'm not sure there is a cure for it. The enthusiasm and comradarie are running high and all are producing great work. Here is a slide show of the paintings from Wednesday.

Tonight was a reception for the opening of the Minnesota Watercolor Society Fall Show. I was honored to be the judge of the show. It is always a difficult task as there were so many good paintings. I had the opportunity to meet the winning artists and make a few comments regarding their winning painting. If you happen to be in the Bloomington, MN. area, make the trip to the gorgeous Bloomington Art Center and check out the show. You get to do a little judging yourself and vote for your favorite piece.

Tomorrow is our last day of the workshop. I will miss this fun energetic group. Can't wait to see what they do with Gesso!

GERALD BROMMER WORKSHOP DAY 3: HEAVY TEXTURE PLUS LINE

Each day just gets better and better. I am very much attracted to this way of working. I hope to do a lot more in the future and have some greater insight into additional methods and ways of combining materials that I never thought of before. I have all the books but somehow they never sunk in. Probably sensory overload. There is only so much we can absorb at a time. I need to revisit lots of my books.

Today we built up the surface with collage paper, using brown bag or brown craft paper for the dark value. Covering the entire surface with layers of paper, then drawing and painting into the wet collage, especially adding white gouache which does amazing things on this surface. Then let it dry and then adding more line, paint, etc. Here are my two efforts for the day. I think this is the first workshop I have ever taken where I wanted to mat and sign anything I did. Amazing!

I am soaking up all of Gerald's wonderful stories and wisdom as well as his great techniques. He has traveled and taught for so many years that he has great little interesting adventures and experiences that he shares.

Tomorrow we will put gesso over the textural surface and paint on that. Gesso? I think I have died and gone to heaven!

BROMMER WORKSHOP DAY TWO: LINE PLUS COLLAGE

Today we worked with collage papers instead of painted shapes. The idea is that the shapes do not relate to the line. More like a double exposure thing where two separate things are merged into one painting. We did two different paintings, one where you start with the line and one where you start with the shapes of collage paper. It was more difficult that I thought. Once you have the line down, it is challenging to ignore the line and put the papers down. If you look carefully, you can see the line under the collage papers in the second image. I decided to photograph the process so there is a before and after. I did two different versions of the Frenchman so I could use them for the LINE chapter.

It was a very fun day and I like the slow progression of adding ideas to the mix one change at a time. Very easy to really absorb the information and put it into use. Gerry liked my first effort so much he said he would like to have it. I said I would trade and he agreed!!!!! Wow, I am very jazzed about that! Honored that he wanted one of my paintings and excited that I get to own one of his.

Tomorrow we work with brown paper, white textured collage papers and layers and layers. Yum!

BROMMER WORKSHOP DAY ONE: LINE & SHAPE

.
This is going to be a FABULOUS week! Gerald Brommer is a masterful artist, an experienced teacher of teachers and students alike, and a humble and charming gentleman. His manner is low key, his discussions full of humor and I like his critiques. He always finds the good in the work but they are honest and instructive. Of course, I would expect as much. I have been in classes where the critiques were useless.

Today's lesson was about light colored shape washes unrelated and subordinate to the line. We worked with starting with line first and then starting with shape first. When you are done, you can't tell which came first. I can't wait to pre-paint my sketch book pages with this idea. The last half hour we painted washi papers for tomorrow's session.

Here are my efforts for the day. They are quarter sheets. I usually don't work this small but it is a good size for a workshop where there is limited space. I wish I had brought my Frenchman photo to work with. I plan to work with him for the rest of the workshop, along with some other faces.

LINE AS SHAPE & PATTERN

While packing a box to ship to Lubbock for the workshop I am giving next week and packing supplies for the Gerald Brommer workshop I am taking this coming week, I came across the start of a painting with the Frenchman. I had drawn this image onto the paper with red ink. I decided to see how the Permanent Masking fluid would work on this paper. Using a calligraphy pen point with a flat nib, I covered the red lines to preserve them. I followed with a pale yellow wash and went from there. I used a wider nib and a ruler to keep my lines straight, I patterned some of the sections with stripes. The resist is very subtle on this paper and in some areas doesn't show up at all. This is my printer paper which doesn't seem to have much sizing in it or on it. I have some other papers to try it on. Overall, I am pleased with this one. I kept to 4 colors and their mixtures. Gamboge, Thalo, Permanent Red and Hansa Yellow Deep (Yellow Orange). It was very helpful to have my value pattern all worked out. I stayed with it most of the way. I was able to remove the color to create a black and white image in the computer. Comparing it to my value sketch, I am happy to say it measures up quite nicely! By outlining the shapes with a line I effectively combined two elements. Using line as pattern is another combination of design elements. Pattern is a form of texture. In fact, each element can be combined with each of the other elements to create an amazing array of ideas.

I look forward to sharing with you the Gerald Brommer workshop this coming week. He will be focusing on Collage and Line!!!!!!! How perfect is that? I am looking forward to meeting him and learning from one of the true master teachers. In fact he has been a teacher's teacher for many years. I know it will make me a better teacher as well as learning some exciting new ways of working.

"NEW" TIMES TWO!

Thinking up blog post titles can be as much fun as creating titles for paintings. The first "new" thing is that my redesigned web site is up and running. Click on the blog title to check it out. One of the best changes is that I can update it myself. It is also more interactive, so viewers can leave comments. Kevin is now ready to help other artists with a custom web site that they can self manage. $200 is his going rate but since I provide dinner every night, I get the deep family discount (free!) I have some rearranging of paintings to do and some workshops to add. Hopefully I will get to that by the weekend.

The second "new" thing is I am starting to work on the examples for the next chapter in my book. LINE is an interesting element and a big favorite of mine. It is most often used as an accent in a painting. Except for Asian Brush Painting, line is rarely the dominant element in a painting. I was searching for a new idea when I thought of reversing the process I used for my line painting in the Nick Series where I redrew the image over and over with successively smaller brushes and darker paint. In this painting I used Permanent Masking Medium. It acts like maskoid but can't be rubbed off. I changed brush sizes and started with pale yellow and went progressively darker with the paint. I did a final line drawing with a dark line. I think it reads as LINE as a dominant element and I am intrigued with the possibilities for this product. I would like to try it again. That's what is so wonderful about experiments. There is no attachment to the outcome and it leads to planned ideas based on the unexpected results.

DRAWING WITH MASKING FLUID!

In the middle of everything, I just had to paint today. I was packing for the workshop and came across a sheet of watercolor paper that had been prepped in one of my favorite ways. You need two sheets of watercolor paper, at least one of which is a failed painting. Apply gesso to one sheet of the paper then brayer a sheet of wax paper over the wet gesso. Lift off the wet wax paper sheet and transfer the gesso from the wax paper to the failed painting. Keep doing that until you have a textural buildup of gesso on the failed painting leaving some of the old painting showing through in areas. I like to use the new press and seal wrap, as well. It creates a very intersting texture ...tiny little dots. Let everything dry. Now you have two pieces of paper with interesting texture that you can put watercolor or acrylic on.

That is how this piece started out. I tried drawing with Pebeo frisket the other day using the larger oiler boiler from Cheap Joe's. The lines were too big. I knew the smaller bottle had too fine of a needle. I tried the bottle from Tap Plastics and it was perfect!! The trick is to have another bottle of clear water handy. You need to rinse the needle out before the frisket dries by forcing water through it. Just transfer the cap to the clear water bottle and squeeze the water through in the sink. Works like a charm. I limited myself to just rose red deep, Paynes Grey and chrome yellow deep. I thought I would get a decent green but chrome yellow deep and Payne's Grey make a khaki color. It does have more color because of the previous painting showing through. After I finished painting and pulled off the frisket, I went over most of the lines with color leaving some white in the hat.

Having gesso on part of the paper and not all allows the paint to act differently, getting absorbed into the untreated paper and sitting on top of the gesso. It creates a random gestural surface that I love. That is what created the background in the last painting, too. Different paper, different effect.

I think this frisket drawing concept has lots of potential. I will work with it more in the future. I love how the hat turned out. The colors pretty much reflect the weather today. Overcast with rain off and on.

OH, NO!! ANOTHER ADDICTION!

I was quite busy today with my art. I accomplished a lot and then I was investigating a drawing done by someone on the Everyday Matters network and WHAM! I BECAME ADDICTED TO THE SCRIBBLE WEBSITE. You can click on the title to this blog and it will take you there, but be warned. This is a very dangerous site for artists! The drawing I first saw done with this "tool" looked like a cobweb wrapped with colored string. It was nice and I was curious, so I ventured over to Scribble and made a stupid little line drawing and started playing with the different controls. Then I looked at the gallery of other work and was blown away by the possibilities. I don't know how much time I spent just looking at the different work and then decided to try a version of the Frenchman. I am working on a MacBook so I was drawing with my finger instead of a mouse. It took me a few tries but this is the 3rd or 4th one I did. You can take a picture of the picture but I didn't close the directions window and I got a picture of the screen with the instructions covering up my drawing! I had to start again. Anyway, I now know how to take a picture of whatever is on my screen (didn't know I could do that!) so I took pictures as I developed this image. I am very excited about the possibilities for exciting line drawings using this tool and then developing them into paintings.

If you would like to try and do a version of the Frenchman on the Scribble site, send it to me and I will make a really fun slide show!

Tomorrow I will post the other work that I did today. Now I have to get back to scribbling.

SLIDE SHOW FOR FRENCHMAN: LINE AS TEXTURE!

Here are some truly creative solutions to the weekly challenge using LINE AS TEXTURE! Tomorrow I will reveal the next week's LINE CHALLENGE for our Frenchman. I hope everyone is having fun with him.

FRENCHMAN: LINE AS TEXTURE #2

I'm not sure this really qualifies as "line" but it certainly is TEXTURE! The stamp I used was web-like lines, so I started out to do physical texture using line. I took an unsuccessful painting I started in a workshop (140lb watercolor paper) and covered it with my new Utrech Gesso. It was like icing a cake! The consistency is like buttercream frosting. It can be thinned down to whatever consistency you want, so it is very economical. I stamped into the wet gesso and then let it dry. Actually, that is as far as I got yesterday. Today I took my time and drew the image with my #4 Lizard's Lick Cheap Joe brush using diluted Cobalt Blue Hydrus liquid watercolor. I kept the board upright so I wouldn't get a distortion. The gesso surface makes lifting and correcting very easy. I then used Hansa Yellow Deep (yellow orange), Permanent Red and the Cobalt. Mixing Cobalt with the Red creates a very dark color close to black! I also drew into the image with my oiler boilers using diluted Magenta and Thalo Blue.

This feel more like me. I like the looseness and texture, lots of color but less abstract.

LINE AS TEXTURE PAINTING #1 FINISHED

I spent a few hours today finishing up the painting. My biggest problem was getting the support board to be perfectly level. I am painting on a French easel in my "Library" space. It has 3 adjustable legs. I have a large art glass marble that I placed on the board. Which ever way it rolled I knew to raise that side. It took awhile, but I finally got the perfect adjustment. I usually work on a table when I am painting on Yupo or Tyvek so it is automatically level.

The ink from the stamped images resisted the paint, creating some interesting effects. I will need to spray this painting with acrylic spray after I am sure I don't want to make any changes. I do this because the heaviest paint will remain tacky indefinitely. The spray seals it and gives an even sheen to the surface.

This painting is pretty wild. I limited my colors to Ultramarine, Alizarin Crimson, New Gamboge, Hansa Yellow Deep and Diluted Thalo Blue. This painting reminds me of a quilted image. It has future possibilities. I do think I need to tone things down next time. Hopefully, I will get my thick gesso tomorrow and can do a texture painting with it.

LINE AS TEXTURE PAINTING STAGE 1

I absolutely love Ann Bagby's paintings. She makes her own stamps. I have purchased the necessary materials to do so, but haven't taken that step yet. I have made some stamps with this very cool stuff that you heat with a stripper gun and then press into a textured surface to create a stamp. You can reheat this foam block with the gun and the image disappears and is ready to accept a new impression. I used one of those stamps in this painting. It is the area around the eye in the detail image. The rest of the stamps are purchased. Click on each image to bring it up in a separate screen, enlarged.

I drew my image on Yupo with a permanent finepoint pen. Then I created a stencil from tracing paper for each shape so I could stamp just the shape I wanted without slopping over into the adjacent area. I thought about keeping the stamped tracing paper to use as collage but decided it wasn't usable. I think next time I will use tissue paper for the stencil so I will have good collage material left over. After I finished the stamping using regular archival stamp pad ink, I redrew the lines with a heavier line. I'm not sure I like it better with a heavier line, but everything is an experiment and gaining knowledge for next time around.

This process is really forcing me to slow down! I need to embrace the process. I completed this step last night and started painting it today. Very slow going but it is looking interesting. This looks nothing like anything I have every done. It does have a graphic quality that I am seeing in lots of contemporary work these days.

I hope everyone is having fun trying new things. Can't wait to see what you come up with. I have added a number of new paintings to the slide show, so check it out again.

DOMINANT ELEMENT: LINE...WEEK 2...LINE AS TEXTURE!

Staying with LINE as the dominant element, use it as texture! Keep colors to maximum 5 tubes, your choice. Texture can be either visual or tactile. In some cases, both. Think of Van Gogh who used repeated lines to create visual texture but his paint was thick so it was also tactile.

Visual texture can be linear patterns that read as texture. Check out Ann Bagby ( I have posted one of her paintings but her website is full of incredible examples) She uses stamps to create the patterns. Here's my interpretation of pattern as texture:


I have posted some of my paintings and few from my "clip files" of other artists to give you some ideas.


The Vern painting was done with different striated combs into wet thick gesso. The Bone painting was aluminum foil collaged onto the watercolor paper after I created linear patterns with a stylus.

Notice with all these examples how the LINE grabs your attention and dominates.

I hope these examples gets your creative juices flowing!