Spicing up a Drawing with Collage

I've been participating in the Sketchbook Challenge off and on over the past year as a way to stay motivated with my drawing and develop a more regular sketchbook habit. The May 2013 theme was bowl. I don't normally draw bowls, so it was fun to do something different. Here is one sketch I did over a previously painted background.

Yet, the more I looked at this bowl, the more I thought it needed just a little something to give it some pizazz So, I sat down and added a few bits of collage. 

Bowl with Collage
mixed media
4" x 6' on paper

Now, that's more like it! I often begin with collage, and then draw, but it's quite fun to do the reverse and see what happens.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

It's been a flower crazy spring for me, ever since taking Carla Sonheim's wonderful online class in March. I've been doing more work with the gesso and watercolor technique, sticking primarily with imaginary flowers.

This one is actually a close up from an altered board book I've been working on. I've been doing collage before the gesso layer and I love the way it looks.

And here you can see the complete spread of crazy flowers.

I really love drawing flowers. I always have. But today, I decided it was time to branch out with this technique.

And before I knew it, this little bird stopped by for a visit. 

Another Day, Another Flower Painting

For the last few weeks, I've been immersed in painting imaginary flowers in Carla Sonheim's online Flower Crazy Class. This is one of my favorite paintings. It started as a purely abstract piece on a square piece of birch board.  In the class we learned how to use gesso to create wonderful texture and then paint with watercolor. The flowers gradually emerged as I added layers of watercolor, sanded, rubbed and added more paint. I love watercolor, but had never used it over gesso, nor on wood. It's amazing to me how beautiful and rich the results are. 

In this painting, perhaps my very favorite of the month, I  started with a collage layer before adding gesso and watercolor.

This one is also on an 8" x 8" wood panel. I am definitely going to continue use this painting method because it's so much fun to do, and I love the results!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today. I always appreciate your comments.

Flower Craziness

Hello, my long neglected blog and lovely blog readers!  I seem to have taken an unplanned break from blogging but the good news is that I've been doing a lot of painting. I signed up for Carla Sonheim's Flower Crazy Class and have been going flower crazy (in a good way) all through the month of March. It's my first online class and I am loving it. Carla is such a wonderful teacher. Beginners and experienced artists alike can learn a lot from her playful and practical approaches to creating art. 

One of the great ideas I've learned from the class is to look at other objects for inspiration. for example, in this exercise, I looked at pictures of gears online for flower shape ideas. Pretty cool, huh?!

And in this painting, I was inspired by a sea anemone.

It's amazing how this takes the pressure off when you're drawing, at least for me. 

Can you guess what my inspiration was for this one? 

I'm amazed by how many completed paintings I've done this month. It's definitely been a worthwhile experience to take this class. 

New Collages with Old Spanish Papers

I recently decided to push myself to open a shop on Etsy. As I am one to take baby steps and let the process of selling my art gradually unfold, I am not expecting overnight success there! I'm sure I have a lot to learn about what will sell, and how to sell it. There's a good reason I didn't study marketing or business in college. Anyway, I'm really enjoying surfing the shops there and discovering all of the wonderful items for sale. I do have to limit that activity, though, because it is easy to be tempted. I did buy some interesting 'vintage' papers from Spain there that I'm having a lot of fun with in my collages.

"Especial"
mixed media collage
4" x 6" on paper

"I Will Touch a Hundred Flowers"
mixed media collage
4" x 6" on paper

Many years ago, I spent some time in Spain, teaching English. It's fun for me to bring a little Spanish into my collages in this way. An old pink receipt brings in a beautiful splash of color, and the lovely words are from Edna St. Vincent Millay,

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

The Power of Doodling: Imaginary Flora and the Brain

I've been doodling this week, or, to be a bit more precise, my whole life. Yes, I'm a doodler from way back. In first grade, my teacher asked my parents to send in a special notepad I could use to doodle on in school. She could have scolded me, or tried to make me stop, but instead, she accepted that it was something I needed to do and found a way to make it possible. From that point on, my doodling passion flourished throughout my entire academic career, and I'm proud to say, it's still alive and well!  Even so, I sometimes I feel like I need to do something more 'serious' with my art than 'just doodle' and I don't always give in to the fun. But this week I gave in to the doodling and doodled on a grand scale! 

First in my sketchbook:

Then on my Ipad!

And finally, I got my encaustics and played around with a doodle design in wax:

Doodling is not only fun, it's good for your brain! Studies have shown that it can help you concentrate, and improve your problem solving ability. This Ted Talk by Sunni Brown outlines some of the benefits of doodling. I think any of us who doodle know this instinctively. It's just a part of who we are, and as natural (and necessary) to us as breathing. So if you're doodler, keep on doodling. And if you don't doodle, why not join in the fun and give it a try?

Encaustic: Inner Journey

Inner Journey
Encaustic 7" x 7" on panel

When I'm busy, the thought of getting set up for encaustic painting seems overwhelming. Since I don't have a studio, I do encaustic painting in my kitchen where there is good ventilation. For that reason, months had gone by since I felt I had time for doing encaustics. This week, I decided enough was enough and got the wax out. This small painting, which includes a few small collage elements, is my result of about an hour of playing with the wax. There is a bit of map in there, which inspired the colors and lines for the overall composition. As I was doing the lines, I focused on creating layers of lines by inscribing lines, rubbing in oil paint, and then adding another layer of wax and repeating the process with more lines. I also used a funky metal roller to create some additional texture in one of the layers of wax. Working with melting wax is so soothing  and really not as complicated to set up or clean up as I'd been letting myself imagine. Winter seems like the perfect time for working with wax so I'm promising myself not to wait so long until my next encaustic session!

Ipad Watercolors On the Road

Here are a few 'watercolors' I did recently on the ipad using the 'Paper by 53 app." As it turns out, painting on the ipad with this app is really fun, and has nice results. I did some of these sketches while in the car. This is a great way to do sketching on the go!

You can read more about my adventure with ipad sketching in this earlier post and see more of my digital sketching if you are interested. Happy New Year to my Paint Party Friday visitors! Thanks so much for stopping by.

Resistance is Futile: Ipad 'Painting'

Since I spend so much time on the computer for work, and other aspects of daily life, I have been resisting any form of digital artwork. It's not that I don't admire it, it's just that I do art in part because I need to do something with my hands that takes me far away from the fast-paced digital world. Yet somehow, over the recent holiday break, I found myself experimenting with drawing and painting on the ipad. I bought myself a stylus, and upgraded my copy of the app Paper by 53 so that I would have the watercolor painting tools. After that, I proceeded to enjoy myself thoroughly, playing around  with drawing and painting on the screen.

It's a great way to squeeze in sketching practice while on vacation. If you don't like your sketch, you just hit delete and start again! This certainly won't replace my other artistic pursuits, but I am happy to have found a way to use my Ipad to work on my art skills.