Mexico tomorrow!

Ron and I are off to Mexico for two weeks. We leave tomorrow and it doesn't look like we will have much internet access while there. I will post as I'm able... I plan to do some sketching and a LOT of photography while there. I leave you with 2 photos... the first is one of the friendly faces I hope to see again, the second is a lovely sunset over the palapas on the Bay of Banderas. I've also provided some information on the peregrinaciones that we will see from Dec 1-12 in Puerto Vallarta.

FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE (source )

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Virgen de Gualdalupe), with its colorful religious processions (Peregrinaciones) from December 1-12, is the most public and extended religious holiday in Mexico. Guadlupe is the patron saint of both Puerto Vallarta and of Mexico. She is also known as La Virgen Morena (the brown-skinned virgin). She is believed to be the manifestation of the Virgin Mary in the Americas.
December 12th celebrates the miraculous appearance of the Virgin Guadalupe to the peasant Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on a hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City in 1531. Puerto Vallarta celebrates this event with daily processions by social, civic and business groups and from adjoining communities to the Church of Guadalupe, in the center of Downtown Vallarta for special masses. Some of the larger of these processions may include parades with floats, dancers, music and fireworks. The final day of the peregrinaciones is a fiesta with fireworks and food vendors in the central plaza.
Visitors are encouraged to watch the processions from the sidewalks or even to join in. The processons usually start around the area of Juarez and October 31st streets.
At midnight on December 11, large numbers of people gather around the Church of Guadalupe to sing the Mananitas to Mary. During the day of December 12, Mariachi bands play and around mid-day the main pilgrimage named de los hijo suentes y previligiados (missing and privileged children) occurs with the largest assemblies of the whole 12 days. Children are dressed in sackcloths and traditional customs made of linen.
At 8pm on December 12 is the last mass of the celebration and the processions keep coming to the Church until almost midnight.

Tea Party gone digital

I had just a few minutes to do art today so I decided to play with the image digitally before attempting it again. These images are the results of my experimenting with the image in photoshop elements. This method is similar to experimenting with an acetate sheet over the painting - nothing is permanent and you get a pretty good idea what will work.
I'm pretty impressed with the results of the first stage of my editing BUT I'm pretty sure I don't have a "clone stamp" tool in my painting kit. It's neat how you can pick up the surrounding pixels and paint them over top. For example, the cut line behind the ladies was quite sharp and noticeable but after painting over it with the clone stamp tool and a watercolor brush (digital of course) it is much less noticeable.
In the second stage (layer) I picked up some of the darker pixels and used a "heavy stipple" wet media brush to to move that color around in the painting. I'm not quite sure whether this is working but it shows what can be done quickly to get an idea about the next step to take with the paper version. Enjoy!

Tea Party part 2

I found a neat copyright-free photo of 4 ladies sitting around a quilting frame working and visiting together. I printed it onto an overhead and attempted a transfer onto this monoprint using acrylic medium. As you can see, not much of the photo transferred and portions of it stuck to the surface and lifted paper when I peeled it off. I'm still getting used to the BFK Reeves paper. I find a huge difference between transferring onto bare paper and a print or painted surface. More practice I suppose...

So, on to plan B - since I damaged the paper I felt the best option left was collage. I reprinted the image onto tracing paper and used acrylic medium to collage it over top of the first mess. And now I've got other challenges... I'm going to need to creatively integrate the image into the print. I have a few ideas to try - more new territory for me. This photo shows where the piece is at this evening. I hope to have some time to work on it tomorrow so stay tuned!

Tea Party Monoprint

I worked on this monoprint over the weekend using Yupo for a printing plate. I missed taking a photo of the plate prior to printing because I was in a hurry. This first picture is the Yupo plate after I printed it - not much paint left so I would call the printing process fairly successful.
I began this project with a farm theme in mind. The trees and barn were cut out of drywall mesh and stuck on as a resist. I expected that some paint would seep down into the grid pattern as I applied it with the brayer but the paint mix must have been too dry. The sky started out blue with just a bit of purple but the dioxazine purple is so strong it overpowered the blue. So, I just went with it and played the yellow /purple compliment game. I rolled gamboge on top of the tree area. The dish pattern was done by dampening cotton lace, laying it over the painted yupo, covering with wax paper, brayering over and then lifting the wetted area with a kleenex.
This second picture shows the resulting monoprint. I left myself a decent sized light value area thinking I would do an image transfer there.
Tomorrow's post - how to nearly wreck and [hopefully] rescue a painting from disaster... stay tuned!

Sky Study (10"x6")

I decided to do a quick sky study today. I usually use ultramarine blue for my skies but thought I'd find out what I get with pthalo blue instead. Phthalo is a cool blue and it gives great grey/black when mixed with burnt sienna. It follows it should be good for greys and stormy skies. But it's a bit too blackish grey... I think I'll go back to the warmer ultramarine blue because it' gives more realistic warm greys for a stormy sky. Enjoy!

Painting Havoc

Two years ago Ron bought me 34 small tubes of Winsor Newton watercolor paint for $30 on Ebay. Most of them have been collecting dust in my drawer because I simply don't need them. For the past 2 years I've been using a limited palette (7 basic + 4 optional). This has forced me to learn color theory hands on and helped my confidence grow. However, I've been curious about some of these colors and I let myself experiment with them using a dropper to see how they blended and mixed wet in wet on the paper. The colors were veridian green, olive green, cadmium orange, cobalt blue, brown madder.


The first photo shows the most interesting learning - cadmium orange floats and spreads in wild bursts of color. Then it dries chaulky - I'm not a fan.

The second photo shows how carried away I got on this little experiment. It was a mess! Thanks for not commenting on this one folks... but I did give the good, bad and ugly warning right up front... Hopefully I'll have something prettier for tomorrow!

Abstract with Transfer

Here's another of the monoprints that I've been working to finish. The first photo is the Yupo plate just before printing - I could have left a larger opening and had a bigger image transfer... The second photo is the finished product on BFK Reeves printmaking paper. The image transfer is my Mom at about 10 years of age. I used acrylic medium to transfer the photo to the printmaking paper, then some acrylic to enhance the image in places. I also strengthened some of the areas of the monoprint with solid watercolor and various textures.

I'm becoming a bit more comfortable with abstraction but I struggle to know when I'm done ;o).

[double click on either image to see it larger]

Enjoy!

Christmas Monoprint (6"x4")

This is an monoprint plate ready for printing. I'd like a lighthearted singing snowman like this to send to my friends. I hope that this will turn out well enough to use as a Christmas card this year. Can I just say that there is no method more fun than spritzing drops of water on to a painting and then lifting them up to get an instant snow storm. We'll soon see.

I have a lot of work in the hopper and slowly but surely I'm making progress on each of them. I'm also having a blast trying various image transfer methods. Hopefully I'll become proficient enough to use them in my art.

Enjoy!

Roots Grown Down Deep (14"x11)

Have the roots of your being firmly and deeply planted in Him. Colossians 2:7 (Amplified Bible)

This is the current status of one of those monoprint starts I did 2 weeks ago. I've struggled with how to progress these things and decided to apply the same methodology I described in my "Composition 101" post earlier this week. I just needed something to get me to the next step. Sure enough, I got an idea about how to develop this one as soon as I got through step 1 (5-7 main shapes) and step 2 (value study thumbnails). Then the fun began!

I wanted a figure with head bowed and searched for that - no dice. Then I found one just about right on the net and I sketched it up on plain paper, transferred the outline to my monoprint and began painting. I began in bottom right corner and used quinacridone rose/blue mix to darken the value around the figure. In the left bottom I developed some boxes that came through on the monoprint into a checked, multi-colored area. The window was a bottle for a while - then that didn't make sense so I morphed it. And that about sums up how this business works. Synergy... one step builds on the previous and so on until you get an idea where to take the piece. I can just about here my readers' say "well, that was as clear as mud". Sorry, you either have to take my word for it or try it yourself. It's hard to describe. It feels like I'm almost done here. I'm considering whether the crossed leaf stamp in the top left is too white. I'll have another look when the sun is out to check the values. Enjoy!

Transfer Experiments

Good news - my laryngitis is abating and I am no longer squeaking when I talk. Now I sound like a gangsta. AND more importantly, I've felt like art again today - yippee!
So, on to my transfer experiments. All of the following examples began with small (2x3) photos printed on my Canon Pixma MP830 Ink-Jet printer and all are acrylic medium transfers.
Summary - There are numerous methods for transferring images to art paper to make them part of a mixed media work. I can use images printed on my MP830, either on transparency or paper, to transfer images to printmaking paper. The critical factors are moisture content and contact time. I found gel medium and water mixed to be superior to straight gel. It was helpful to spritz the printmaking paper lightly before transferring so that it doesn't rip when lifted.
If you'd like to see image transfer methods in action, go to YouTube.com and search on "image transfer" pretty cool stuff there!
I'll begin with the most successful and then show the disasters and what I think went wrong.
A. Materials - Rives printmaking paper, Golden Gel Medium (gloss), water, paintbrush, photo printed on transparency.
I began by brushing a mixture of medium and water onto the printmaking paper in the shape of the photo. I quickly laid the transparency photo onto that wet area, burnished it with my finger for a few (3-5) seconds and then lifted off the transparency slowly from the corner. There are a few small spots that didn't transfer on both images and the faces could be clearer but the images are recognizable for sure.

B. This second set were done using the very same method as the first but pressing a newly printed plain paper photo into the medium, burnishing with thumb (3-5 secs) and lifting. They don't have the darker values the first method gives but they have a nice soft sepia tone to them that I like. I'll need to practice more with this method to make sure I get the right level of moisture and the contact time down pat.

These are some of the transfers that didn't turn out:
C. I used Rheotech matte medium brushed directly onto the printmaking paper, applied the transparency, burnished lightly and lifted. The problem on the left was uneven application of the medium. When I lifted the transparency the centre was blurred and gooey but the top left corner was stuck to the paper and it ripped. What a mess that would be on a project!
On the right hand side you can see what happens if you don't get the transparency lifted off in time - it adhered to that paper and would have ripped the whole area off if I had kept lifting it. Again, a mess.

D. Below left the image is visible but it's mostly blurry. I used the same materials as in A. but I dampened the outside edges of the transfer area with water. Then I brushed the area with gel/water mix, applied and burnished the transparency and lifted. The problem was too much... water and medium - it transferred the image but when I lifted the transparency the goo moved around and it made "meringue" peaks in the medium. If the right parts were crisp and the outside blurry it would look pretty cool in the right piece.
The image on the right was almost okay - just a bit too little of everything here... yep, it's picky! Reminds me of water control in painting... CRITICAL

E. The images below were done with close to the right mix of medium and water - just a bit too dry on the edges so the paper ripped.

Happy Friday!