I ordered a few colored plexiglass squares to experiment with. Since they’re so small, instead of printing with them, I just embellished them with acrylic and gold leaf. I ordered this blue color, a hot pink transparent and an opaque red. I really like the effect!
The guide is a heavy pencil drawing that I used for painting and printing the larger pieces. I am hoping to get multiple uses out of these, especially being able to focus in on details for smaller pieces.
I love the look of stained glass, but my overflowing supply cabinet and relatively small studio space tell me now is not the time to learn a new craft! So, I tried painting on *Grafix Dura-Lar to mimic the effect for now.
I used a combination of ink and acrylics and lined it with Pebeo relief outliner to get more dimension and a stained glass edge effect.
I’m happy with the way it turned out, and because the Dura-Lar is more portable than a heavy window, I can move the pieces around to different windows, easily make larger pieces or switch them out for seasons, etc!
*I occasionally use affiliate links, when it’s a product I have used or personally recommend, and when it makes sense to do so.
I’m still having a great time going through my art supply stash and finding new ways to use things. This piece is a magazine clipping under plexiglass, both embellished with acrylic paint to make layers. Plus gel pen on the magazine page, and a tiny bit of holographic spray paint that’s hard to see in the photo, because I’m not used to working with spray paint and am being very cautious for now.
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen my photos evolve from travel, art galleries and around the town stuff to nature and home, and that’s about it. I know I am not the only person to make such a shift. It’s really inspired my art, as well, not only in wanting to recreate some of the pretty spring scenes I have encountered, but also wanting to recreate a bit of a fantasy world to escape to in my mind.
I wish I could self isolate on that beautiful veranda behind flowering vines, with sparkles in the air!
In the spirit of trying new things in the “social distance” era, I’ll be posting some work as affordable coloring pages to purchase on Etsy. There are three up now, but I’ll add more over time so “Favorite” my store and check back often.
They follow the style of my other work, a little whimsical, a little magical, a little real. The first series is similar to my “Brilliant Disguises” pieces from years ago, and combine drawn portraits and digitally collaged pattern. (The Watermark won’t appear on the purchased files.)
It’s not a 100-percent match to my other work, because I had to draw in and reference styles that would translate well to coloring by someone else. I also had to draw and edit digitally, with stronger lines and inking vs. sketch. But the work is mine, originally drawn with some sourced digital collage pattern. I love it and hope you do, too!
It’s so important right now to support independent artists and keep a bored world entertained, haha! I am sure we will see an uptick in participatory art like this. It’s important to me to make quality work and keep it affordable, and coloring pages seem like a good way to do that.
Happy Art-ing!
An upside of the social distancing we are experiencing, is that there’s not much to entertain or distract me from my studio. When things get busy, it is one of the first activities to be pushed aside, which makes no sense, because when I am in there, almost immediately, I feel relaxed and productive. I think it’s human nature, or at least American nature, to feel that if something is “fun” than it isn’t work, and if it isn’t work, than it’s not as important as work. Even though I like my actual “work,” I am not immune to that attitude.
Anyway, I’ve been wanting to work with oil paint, but my studio supplies are getting out of control and I don’t want to buy anything new until I work on that. But I have oil sticks, pigment and oil binder. So, I decided to try making my own oil paint from pigment and safflower oil, and with a little oil mixed into oil stick.
I used Earth Pigments and Schmincke pigments (Pthalo Green), with Winsor & Newton binder and Shiva sticks. Since I’m happy with the outcome, next time I’ll use some of my precious Kremer pigments! This method worked for me, since I work in small batches and at this time, am not producing collector-quality works for sale or display. When I decide to upgrade the work, I’ll do more research and upgrade the process and materials accordingly, I am sure.
There are so many ways that creative work can bring joy and satisfaction. I love being able to experiment with raw materials to make something new. I’m self aware enough to know that I am not the world’s best artist, and that’s okay. My creative satisfaction comes from the act of creating something completely new, whether it’s a piece of art, a rubber print block that I carved and used, or mixing up paint in an new shade or finish. I enjoy breaking things down to their component parts and then rebuilding them into something useful and custom-made.
In this chaos, for me at least, it’s going to be important to look beyond the usual for validation and happiness. Everything from client acquisition and feedback to social media measurement will dip, so those things aren’t accurate metrics right now. My business, like most businesses, will just have to be what it is for a little while, but I can regain some of that validation through my creative work. While I don’t know what life will look like on the other side of this, it really does help to identify healthy and creative things that I can control, and do more of those things while the world works itself out.
There wasn’t sparkly green, antique rose gold or sheer pink iridescent oil paint in my world before I went into the studio yesterday, and now there is. I can see it, mix it, paint with it, and finish the day knowing that I built one small thing that does what it’s supposed to do.
