Chillies in acrylic

Another journalling spread of chillies on black gesso. I’m not finished with this chilli theme. I’ll do some more small ones for studies and then a large painting. It’s far more vibrant in acrylics than the Conte crayons, and quicker too.  In using an altered book, I’m glueing pages together and removing some, so that it doesn’t get too thick when I gesso all the time. This means that the pages have a bit of a ripple sometimes, and that the gutter is very pronounced. This means it always has to be worked around in some way. This is why I have a border down the side of this page, otherwise my gutter would be down the centre of the centre pot.

I’m still not convinced about this ‘art journal’ business. I am just pressing on till the end of September in the hopes that I create some good habits that I’ll use in my sketchbook. My ‘main’ sketchbook is handmade from Stonehenge paper. Nearly all the pages have been prepped in some way – mostly by just sloshing on a wash of whatever is on my palette when I’m painting. So that is not new – I just want to write more, though without turning it into a diary, and to compose the page spreads with more thought.

Chillies in pastels

This is a spread from the journalling challenge. This time on BLACK gesso. Earlier this year, Mignon Parker came into the office and did a demo on black gesso and I’ve been longing to try it ever since. (Mignon is doing a free workshop at the Derivan Open Day, but sorry, it’s full).

Just after that I spotted some gloriously coloured pots of chillies outside the local florist, photographed them with my phone, and have been longing to draw them ever since.

This is conte crayons and conte pencils, two layers. Unfortunately the fixative spray deadened the colours a lot. Not sure why. I haven’t had that happen before, but then in pastels I’ve always worked bigger. This is a first study for a painting on black gesso. There’s second one done, but haven’t had time to put it on the blog yet.

Cubist painting with Matisse Dry Mediums

I started this painting some time ago. We decided to make a project sheet for doing a cubist painting with Matisse Dry Mediums. I’d painted this cubist painting at the Easter Show, so I had to do another one so that we could photograph it step by step. Here’s how this painting started out. I got sidetracked by all the watercolour pencil drawings I was doing for Kate Johnston’s Watercolour Pencil Class. Finally it got done now, and the project worksheet won’t be long.

Demonstrating on 2nd July – new Dry Mediums

Hi everyone,

On 2nd July (which is not far away at all) I will be demonstrating a semi-abstract landscape done with the new Matisse Dry Mediums at The Art Scene at Ryde (on Victoria Road and not far from the Homebush Bay turnoff (Concord Road)).  I will be putting the dry mediums onto a canvas and explaining them as I go. Then I will magically whip out another canvas where the texture has already dried, and I will proceed to paint it to completion. Full step-by-step project sheets will be available.  The painting I will be doing will be very similar to the one shown in the background of this advertisement.

There are some great demos coming up at the Art Scene in July …. read about more of them here.

Paste papers in the rain

This is what we did on Sunday. I had an arrangement made a very long time ago to teach some friends how to make paste paper.  We wanted a fine day, because we needed to dry the papers on the clothesline out in my courtyard so that we do could do more layers.

The weather was against us. First we put them on the line, but then we had to go out in the rain & quickly bring them in. So we had newspaper all over the floor of the lounge, the heater on, and papers pegged to the clothes-horse in front of that and all over the floor as well. We also had the heater on in the kitchen where we were working, and were drying off the driest ones   there.

We started off with some paste I’d cooked made from wheaten cornflour. When that was used up we used Matisse Print Paste, and it worked very well diluted a little.

These are some of the ones I made. I only wish that they’d scan as beautiful as they are. The top one is Matisse Indigo with the gold.  There’s a little cerulean blue in under there too. That’s my favourite.

This green one is Matisse Emerald over paper that had had blobs of paint put on it, pressed together and then pulled apart. It has a sort of batik look in under there.The orange one is Permament Orange over Cobalt Teal.

I made 10-11 pieces, which wasn’t bad under the circumstances. We started at 10am and it was getting dark when we finished.

Dry Mediums – cubist step by step

This is step two of my cubist painting. I’ve collaged ‘La Fiamma’ which is Sydney’s Italian language newspaper, then underpainted with a little yellow oxide mixed with Matisse Matt Gel Medium to strengthen the newsprint. Then I’ve applied the various textural Matisse Dry Mediums onto the shapes within the main objects.  There are also shapes in the background, done with Microspheres and Wollastonite, because they are relatively transparent and I wanted to retain some of the newsprint.