Donna Downey's Abstract Florals class

Donna Downey offered her Abstract Florals class online this fall. And I am taking it, yay!  What a great birthday present from my FIL and SIL and her husband. Thank you! It's about learning to become free in your painting, beginning to understand  how your tools can become your friends (this takes time!), and how contrast can make your art work come off the page.  Oh, I can't leave out Color, many, beautiful colors and how they play with each other.  What a great class! I highly recommend it to those who are interested in acrylic painting. Keep up with her activities at donnadowney.com .

This is painting #1 & #2 of week 1.

These are paintings #9, #10, #11 & #12.  Practice does bring improvement!

Finishing up week 1 with a painting on a cradled board. And having fun!
Join me!

Thanks for visiting,

Debbie

New things going on!

Today we created a promo video for our new company, White Iris Arts!  So it must be real:-) White Iris Arts was created by Brenda Holtzman and myself to promote Artist Workshops and Retreats, and some of our own original art.  It's been months in the making so it's pretty exciting to have something to finally announce!

Our first workshop will Intro to Encaustics by Shari Replogle.  Find more info at White Iris Arts and visit Shari's site to see her amazing work.

Thanks for stopping by!

Debbie

Time Flies...

...when you're having fun!  And I have been having fun.  Continuing to dabble in encaustic painting. I've taken a few on line classes from Shari Replogle and last weekend I was able to take an "in person" class from her at Artiscape.  Lots of information, lots of wax, lots of Shiva Oil Paintstiks, lots of fun. I am hooked! Here's a look at what I came up in class.  It continues to evolve. At some point I just need to stop...

And while on the topic of Encaustic painting, Shari is teaching an online workshop " Encausticology" Encaustic Image Exploration! (click the title to find out more). There are just a few more days for the early bird special price of 55.00. On April 21 it will go up to the regular workshop price of 65.00.  

And one more advertisement, if you are in the Dayton, OH area on May 8, join me for the monthly Art Journal class at Marco's Paper from 10-1. We'll play with a plaster page, beeswax & PanPastels.

Enjoying the Journey!
Debbie

Metal embossing video

In December I posted about a class that I took called an Encaustic and Metal Journal.  In that post I mentioned a video that would be posted about embossing metal.  Here it is! Yay! Kudos to my husband for a great job on the putting the video together, especially the intro.  Hope you enjoy the video Embossing Art Metal.

Debbie

I love Pan Pastels!!

Donna Downey posted today about Pan Pastels and her online classes. I had to comment!  I first met Pan Pastels at Donna's first Inspired event in Nov of 2011.  Love at first stroke of buttery smoothness!

One of our many journal pages. So. Much. Fun!

After that introduction I began exploring Pan Pastels online and started taking some of Donna's classes.  I have an art journal full of exploration of this delightful medium from her online classes!

Pan Pastel through a mask over Ranger color wash

One of my favorite lessons  - love the contrast. Don't be afraid of dark darks.

Continuing my exploration by copying other paintings.
Same painting but on differing surfaces.

And by seeing  how Pan Pastels play with other mediums,
(more details here)

including encaustic. See this blog post.

Donna's classes (both online & in person) have given me a foundation and inspired me to pursue Pan Pastels. It was great to walk through the early exploration hand-in-hand, so to speak, with Donna. Great (and entertaining) instruction, detailed product lists, and helpful handouts.

My delight in Pan Pastels has continued as I've introduced others to them while teaching at Marco's Paper, a store in Dayton, OH.

Tease of a previous Christmas class

Learned my love of image transfer from Donna also! Combine that with Pan Pastels
(and Ten Second Studio metallic patina'd paint on the frame) - Heaven!
Oh, And modeling paste :-)

Had to teach how to make those amazing, dimensional hearts!

I hope you'll be inspired to take some, or all, of Donna's Pan Pastel classes.  Jump in! The waters great!

Debbie

An Encaustic Journey...

is where I have been traveling! Several months ago I began an online class with Shari Replogle called Metal and Encaustic Journal.  So. much. information.  I had to soak in it for a while before I jumped in and began creating. 

This is my cover. I made the book as a memorial to my mom who passed away several years ago.  In some ways that made it more difficult because I was trying to capture her from my memories.  But it was good to remember! And I found her diary and was able to incorporate some of the pages into the book. The cover is layers and layers of encaustic medium with collage and embedded items.

Pages 1 and 2 are created using different encaustic techniques. Page 1 is colored with oil pastels. The mustard seed is the pendant that she wore regularly.  Page 2 is colored with Pan Pastels and features part of an oil pastel that was hers. As I embedded it in the wax the pastel got on my brush and I accidently painted the orange onto the page. A happy accident for sure!  I added orange highlights around the page.  My favorite part is all that amazing texture!

"Page 3" is actually a little book.  Front and back are bound together with a little accordion book in between that are pages (copies) from my mom's diary.  They are covered in Ice Resin. (Thanks for the idea Shari!)

The inside of the cover isn't from the class so here's what I did - On the back of Ten Second Studios Apple Green art metal (metal painted a color on one side) I stamped Donna Downey's Poppies stamps (the outline) with Staz On ink. Placing the metal on an embossing pad (or mouse pad, something with a little give) trace the pattern with a stylus. Flip the metal over and a raised flower design should be staring at you :-)  The next step is to take a paper stump and refine the design - basically trace around both sides of the raised lines to define them.  The problem now is that the flowers are green. To fix that take a little metal brush & in a circular motion scrub off the green paint in the flower area; bits of aluminum will be peeking back at you now.  Using your finger and acrylic paint rub the color into the flower. Let it dry for just a bit then rub some off. The paint will catch in the nooks, crannies & scratches. To highlight the flower even more sand the embossed design.  I forgot to take pictures but hope to have a little video up soon.

Ice Resined diary pages

On the back of the book I coated the cover with green oil pastel, then painted clear gesso over it.  While it was wet I stamped into the gesso with a cool little wooden stamp from Donna Downey's store (which I don't see on her website). When the gesso was dry I highlighted the pattern with the salmon colored oil pastel and a bit of white pastel.  Using Archival ink I stamped a Donna Downey stamp to finish the back.

Thanks for visiting with me and if you want to take an Encaustic Journey, head over to Shari Replogle's page!

Debbie

Just Playing

A couple of  5 x 7 canvases that I'd painted with Golden's Fluid Acrylic Paints (photo on the right) have been on my desk for a while. I'd had an idea in mind but then I saw someone, I think it was Lin at Yours Artfully or Claudine Hellmuth, who stamped on tissue paper, then used gel medium to adhere the stamped piece to a canvas.  Brilliant! So I inked my Donna Downey stamp with Ranger Archival ink, heat set it, then painted (carefully) with Golden's Fluid Acrylic Paint (photo on the left). 

The left photo below shows the tissue paper adhered to the canvas. Notice that you can see the tissue edges.The photo on the right has some "interest" already added, which helps to cover the tissue.

Having two canvases, I wanted to use different mediums on each, after the initial layer of paint. On the first I sprayed a little of Distress Reinker spray in Broken China and Wild Honey (those streaks on the canvas above right). See the little mister bottles? Add one dropper full of Distress Reinker, then fill almost to the top. Mix & spray.  A little scoop of Perfect Pearls is a nice addition also. On the first canvas, I wanted to use PanPastels. Diarylide Yellow toned down the Tissue Tape. Tapping a little Permanent Red through a stencil, dabbing on Turquoise in the bottom right corner (left photo below) completed the first layer of color. Then I thought it would be fun to add a couple of smaller flowers (below left).  I was wrong! Notice the picture on the right below - more gesso on the top left to tone down the tape & on the bottom right to cover the flower. I love gesso!

A little more PanPastel was added to tone down the whiteness of the gesso. I had a new stamp set from Wendy Vecchi's Stampers Anonymous collection that needed to get inky. The "stamping on tissue paper" technique worked well with the saying, and it was perfect for the project.  Apply a little gel medium (Golden's Reg. Gel Matte) to the canvas, lay the quote on, and add a little more pastel to blend into surface. "Make Art" was stamped directly onto the canvas using Ranger's Archival Jet Black ink. Although it was about the process, I enjoy the end result :-)

On the second canvas I wanted to use Faber Castell Gelatos.  First things first, however. And that would be layers and texture. A variety of tissue tape and random stamping accomplished the goal (left below). Then some messy gessy (right below). I love how gelatos move on gesso, much easier to smooth them (with my finger, cause I like messy hands!).

Scribble the gelato directly on to the canvas, smear. A wet finger or a spritz of water can also help the process.  Experiment to see what you like. Green and violet were layered across the top; a little orange and red color the bottom left with a little green traipsing down toward the right corner (left photo below). But it needed more something... I know, gesso! Another layer of random gesso, applied with a palette knife, blends the colors a bit. Scraping it across the flowers brings more life to them also (right photo below).

I don't have a photo but ... I watered down some green gelato that was smeared onto my craft mat. Used quite a bit of water to dissolve the crayon, then dripped it with a paint brush down the top left to bring back the green background (left photo below). And then I found another fun technique.  I love image transfer and I really love this. I really enjoy Michelle Ward's work.  And she had a fabulous blog, Green Pepper Press Street Team - so much inspiration! She is one reason I picked up a paint brush and began to play. Speaking of play, "Playing" was typed in Word, flip, printed on the laser printer and transfered to the canvas using Gel Medium. I love how it turned out!  The additional words were printed, trimmed and adhered with Gel Medium.  I like that almost as much as I like gesso! Smudge on some gelato, rub until it's messy. The piece was still a little bland so I added Gel-dot-os. Okay, so I just made that up :-) I did use gelatos, pressing the crayon straight down to create a dotty pattern (left photo below). And then just a close up of all the "noise".

Wow, if you stayed with me this whole time, I'm impressed!  I encourage you to go play. Grab some gesso, gel medium, paint and other arty goodies. Make something. It may make you smile too!

 

Debbie