You are invited:

 Here is an invitation to our guild's annual spring art show. Each artist is allowed to put in 6 items, but they have to be new, never shown here. Hope to see you there! (PS...if the times don't work out for you, call me and I'll arrange a time to meet you there!)

Chri

ALSO: Spring class begins the first Thursday in April, April 7. It will go for 8 weeks.

Playing with textures

 One way to do a background is to do that first and incorporate it into the painting. Here are a

few ways to accomplish this:

1. Plan several textures. On this example I spattered miskit, laid down joint tape; used saran wrap and wax paper; and dropped coins on the wet paper, and salted the wet paint.

After it dried, I sketched some still life on it and began to paint. I could also do some negative painting. Haven't decided on how to finish it yet, but at this point you can see many of the textures in the background.

The point of this exercise is to let yourself experiment with textures. In the one below, I showed how you could, if you wanted, do some planned painting using textures: used contac paper for the tree shape; miskited out some distant tree trunks; used cheese cloth for distant brush; joint tape; stretched saran wrap to create water in a stream, and wax paper cut circles to create some rock texture in the forground. This could be turned into a loose landscape without too much effort.

Another way to do a background first is to spatter miskit, blow it with a straw, or otherwise spread some miskit on the paper. If I get globby shapes I don't like, I rub it when it is dry to get shapes I like better, or get rid of shape I don't like. After the miskit is dry, create a light wash over it. Remove the miskit. Then place your sketch over the background. It could be anything: flowers, a ballet dancer, faces, buildings, anything you like.

Student work using grisaille

Here's a bit of show and tell of student work using grisailles method in one way or another.

Barb did this picture using burnt sienna for the underpainting and following

one of the methods for creating a black background.

Jackie used color for underpaintings, and then created a misty background 

that works well with the hands.

Sylvia had done this painting in sepia and pen in the past, and is

experimenting with glazing color over it.

Shirley used brown Brusho for the underpainting and

the shadows. Looks better than the photo.

Dorothy underpainted, then wanted to warm up the skin..

Working on those curls was a challenge!

Here I took the beginnings of a demo on underpainting and just

made up the rest. I underpainted with Brusho, then used several flesh tone

glazes, keeping warmer colors on the left and cooler on the right. I wanted to play with the hair, 

so added greens and oranges; lifting out some highlights; and finishing with what looks like pastels, but isn't. It is a product called Intense Blocks....like Inktense colored pencils but in sticks the size of pastel sticks. 

You can use them wet or dry...wet to create washes of color; dry to give a pastel look.

I added the necklace to bring the eye around instead of stopping at the hair on the left.

Inktense Blocks