Crackling Issues

#128 Ligneus 12x24"

Finalized version. Added some copper embellishments to enhance a few areas, I'm pleased that it can hang vertically and horizontally.  With the bronze underpainting, this piece has luminous aged wood look, thus the name "Ligneus" Latin for Ligneous meaning: wood like

As you can see the big boy (48x48") is textured, dried and waiting for paint. Now for some inspiration of how I want to paint it!

Colour selection can often challenge me and when working at this scale I'm taking probably too much, intimidating time to decide.  It's a lot of paint to waste if I don't like where it goes, so I'm kind of stalled out, or maybe just waiting until my gut tells me I'm ready.

In the meantime this guy is getting decked out and I do know what and how I want to paint him, just waiting on a new shipment of crackle to arrive, which is really what I wanted to share in this post.

As you know I love my crackle and although I use other varieties, like Golden's crackle paste, Ranger's, Jo Sonja's is my go to crackle for most things.  I order in bulk and finally worked through my stash to the new bottles I had ordered in February.  Much to my dismay, none of the bottles would crackle!  Like many things, this product is sensitive to temperature extremes.
On the bottle it warns you to store away from direct sunlight but I'm also discovering that it can't take too cold temperatures either.  Because I ordered this in February to an International Mailbox service where packages are kept in a warehouse until picked up, I'm afraid the snapping cold winter we had resulted in my bottles being affected, results no more crackling.  Needless to say, I'll be stocking up in Spring and early fall from now on!

My loft companion.  She's an old gal (going on 14, NS Duck Toller) and always seems to plant herself where ever I am in the house.  Behind her is an unfinished piece waiting for the arrival of my shipment of crackle, and a nice stack of canvas I invested in @ a great price 3 for the price of 1.  (Wood panels in the big box)  Should keep me busy for a time I'm thinking!

Texturing Your Art

On my blog today, I thought I would share a few of my texturing tools and tricks.  This is not a step by step but simply showing you a few things you can do, or use to create some wonderful effects in your paintings.

I use a variety of mediums layered on with a palette knife, each one holds paint differently and adds to the contrast when painting.  Gel mediums for example are smooth and slick when paint is applied, sometimes giving a translucent effect to the paint.  My go to place for gel mediums, texture pastes, course lava gel, gesso is Nova Color  Their prices are excellent and I feel they hold up as well as other Brand names do.  Golden and Matisse are my preference in paint though I do use a few colours from Nova as well. Jerry's Artarama is where I buy my paints, varnish, brushes and well most everything else.

So using this redo piece as my example, lets have a look at some of the things I did. (Be sure to click on the photos to see the details)

One of my fav texturing elements is the simplest, cheese cloth. I buy mine at my grocery store, it's everywhere!  I use it under the gesso and paint here and as a finishing element (in other pieces) I pull and fray it extensively before attaching it with gel or with gesso as I did here as a base texture.  You will notice the wonderful stencil I used by the talented Mary Beth Shaw.  I applied it using Wood Icing my other go to item, both purchased through Mary Beth @StencilGirl

Now here's a simple trick, the wood grainy texture through out this piece was created by using a firm foam brayer.

I use both the hard rubber brayer and this one. Now I know many use the inexpensive foam rollers but I found that for my work they, #1 soaked up one load of my expensive paint and #2 just couldn't handle the multi textured levels of my work, in other words they would get hung up and skid across sections instead of laying down track like you see here.  Just saying, sometimes the right tool is worth the investment.

You could use this to put your layer of gesso on or as in my case, I was doing an under painting in Bronze so I rolled it on achieving the wood grain effect you see here.

In this photo you will see that I used a thin layer of crackle medium by Jo Sonja. This is a one step crackle that dries clear and frequently gets used in my pieces, in this case I applied the crackle over my textured base, let it dry overnight then gessoed the piece.  Love the wonderful aged look it adds.

This is just a sampling of what can be done to create texture, remember this is a redo painting so it has layers of texture paste and wood icing as it's base, I only shared the top layering effects.

From here I am playing with collaging some embellishment items to create a stronger focal point, will let you know how that goes!

Process And Productivity

It's a deep freeze out there this morning!

The loft it bright and welcoming though, so all is well in my world.  

Finished this one and am starting the process of textures and layering on the large 48x48" hanging from my bookcase, plus one on the easel.  I made an investment in canvases last week, great sale locally on gallery wrap 3 for the price of 1.  It required some major reorganizing in the loft to make space and to create a workable area for the large sizes.  I now have the tall table set up so I can work from both sides and can now also hang the canvas as I don't have an easel that can handle the large sizes well.

Anyway, love how my medallion like piece turned out, very Mayan/Game of Thrones looking, but do you think I can come up with a name!  I suck at coming up with names, what can I say, have a feel for the piece but names just don't come to me easily.

Also finished this little 12x12"


Something to think about...

"Each of us has our own unique creative time clock.  Some like to work away steadily and neatly from start to finish, while others delay till the last minute and build up energy that essentially blasts them into a tumultuous process of creating. There are also people who plunge into the work at the beginning with large aspirations, and then hit serious obstacles.  No matter what your style may be, impediments are an inevitable part of the creative process. It can be helpful to think of the obstacles as a necessary part of the process rather than as hindrances to it."  Trust The Process, Shaun McNiff



http://www.brendathebeauabstracts.com/130.html

True To Yourself

Vault Of Heaven

It's been interesting exploring "poured painting" techniques.  I originally felt it was something I wanted to incorporate into my work as another textural element but branched out a little when my Grand-daughters asked to do some small canvases, emphasis on small canvases.  Larger canvases are much more challenging and the results unpredictable. I missed having more control over what went where and I missed moving paint with my brush my hands.  Still it has been quite the experiment and I learned some things.

I was fascinated with the way the paint and medium wove together making these glorious patterns and markings. It created the kind of liquid movement I had hoped it would and contrasts wonderfully with the textures of my under paintings.  I'll continue working with combining paint and resin as highlights and elements of my overall work.  

Like so many things I try, it amazes me how quickly, I find out what is going to work for me. It's instinctive I think, knowing what has that something that lights me up on the inside. There is a deep satisfaction when I'm working with the tools, mediums and techniques that fit my creative bent.  Like when I first used Gorilla Glue, we bonded straight away!  It's been that way with, well everything I've tried, I just knew what was a fit for me and what wasn't. 

I'm a very tactical person, I love the feel of the brush pushing paint, I love the contrasts that various elements create as I work. I love it when people reach out to run their fingers across the textures of my finished canvases, intimate and moving.

Now I have canvases that go sideways on me all the time, just as I did when doing a large pour on a big canvas (24x36")  I will spend countless hours finding my way through problem pieces until they work.  The difference with the large poured painting is, I didn't enjoy the process, it just didn't 'feel' right to me, there was nothing satisfying in it and there's no getting away from that for me.  It's all about what makes your inner world hum.  For some the liquid movement of pouring paint, tipping and tilting the canvas to see what patterns will emerge and the smooth, slick dried surface will be exactly right.  But this tactical, texture hungry artist knows that I'll be using it only as finishing touches on my textural pieces, sometimes.

Why am I going into all this, for one reason only... being true to yourself, is what creating art is all about.   Knowing when you're onto something that you need to keep working with to perfect and knowing when something just doesn't strike the right note with you will keep you from endless frustrations going down a road you were never suppose to go. It can derail you.

Maybe you're struggling with a medium that isn't working for you, the question is not so much 'what can I do about this?" as it is "do I want to do anything about this?"  The answer will help you define your artistic voice if you'll let it.