Tag Archives: painting

River Rocks Complete

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design, painting, sketch book

I finished up the river rock painting. I sprayed it with fixative (Thanks Paula!) and then did more painting on top.

So here’s the piece with water added. I had to do several layers to get the shadows and the highlights working better. But I’m pleased with the outcome. Painting water is hard!

This ruffed grouse was in the choke cherry tree behind our house. My brother-in-law got a great photo that I used to sketch by. He or she has some beautiful feathers and after sketching him/her, I can see why the name is Ruffed Grouse. He/she definitely has a ruff around his/her neck. And this bird is hefty! It’s in the same family as chickens and he/she did look like a chicken in the tree.

Have a great weekend!

Experimenting with Acrylics

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design, mixed media, painting

I wrote a post about creating some painted Tyvek samples on the Felting and Fiber Studio here. I decided to combine the tyvek pieces I had with a variety of acrylic mediums and paint. Since they are both plastics, I thought they might be a bit more integrated than trying to add tyvek to fabric. I always have an issue with the fact that it looks like I just plopped the tyvek on top and called it good. The tyvek never really feels integrated into a piece. So this was an attempt to try something different with tyvek. I made 5 samples but they aren’t dry and I can’t move them to take a good photo. But I did take a photo on my cell phone that turned out better than the photos from my regular camera.

I used light modeling paste mixed with orange paint and then pushed the tyvek down into the modeling paste. It squeezed up through the holes in the tyvek and the result is definitely interesting. I will have to see if it needs something more after it dries. I could always add more paint or perhaps brush the high points with oil paint sticks. It definitely has texture.

This is one of my samples that the photo was bad so I “solarized” it in Photoshop. Pretty cool effect. Maybe I can print this out and use it in a collage.

I painted this “stripe” painting for my first session of my art and design class. The one on the left is the original. It sat in my studio for a year. But now I have had some time to add a bit more to it. The end result is on the right. I like it better but can’t decide if it is finished or not. What do you think?

 

A Couple More Samples

Posted on by under Level 3 Art and Design, sketch book

I have been working on these leaves for several weeks now. They involved multiple layers of paint and acrylic mediums.

I used the shapes of real leaves to create these. They are about the thickness of leaves and almost feel like real leaves when they are fresh. If you look closely at the photo on the right, you will see I started with newspaper.

Here’s another rock study. I had a really hard time taking a photo of this. It has multiple layers of paint, acrylic media and then colored pencil. The camera couldn’t seem to focus on it at all. Weird. I had hoped to get a lot more done today but we were dealing with snow!

We got nearly 8 inches of snow in the last 24 hours. We usually have snow starting in late November, this is a bit early for a big dump like this. And we’re expecting it to keep snowing until Monday. Anyone want to come help shovel?

Color

Posted on by under Color, Level 3 Art and Design

Today I painted some paper using a layering technique with paint brushes, dry brushes and sponges to get some texture for backgrounds. I used a combination of water color and acrylic paint.

Some of these are a bit spotty but they should still work OK for backgrounds.

Some of the paper was wet first and then painted. Others were painted on to dry paper.

This one I painted by dragging a sponge across dry paper. It was painted in two different layers.

This one has multiple layers starting with yellow and adding blues and greens.

This one was done with a small cosmetic sponge so doesn’t have as much texture as the bigger sponges.

The lines are from a dry brush technique just dragging the brush across the paper.

We’re supposed to be working on getting a feeling of movement.

It was fun just to play with paint and be a little looser.

Not sure what all these will turn into but now I have a variety of painted papers to play with. Have a good weekend.

 

Mexican Leaves Collage

Posted on by under mixed media

This is a piece that I started working on during our recent retreat. I used a color scheme that I saw many times on our visit to Mexico. I also used some ephemera (taxi receipts) from our trip. I glued down the ephemera and scraps of paper to 6″ x 6″ canvases and then added color. I also used a variety of torn gelatin plate printed papers that I created on the retreat.  Then I decided to add the leaf motifs after I got home. I made acrylic skins with pouring medium to create the black outlines. I hadn’t tried that before and would definitely make them thinner next time.

Artwork by Ruth Lane

Here are all three of them together.

The color scheme is not one I would normally use but I really enjoyed using these bright, saturated colors.

Artwork by Ruth Lane

They are on the deeper canvases and were great fun to play with in this smaller size. That way I didn’t feel too intimidated like I do when I try to use a bigger canvas. I have tons more paper to use up so I think I will try some more mixed media collages like this. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!