ROSES GALORE

Right well, I hate painting flowers.  Tried to paint a rose and it was awful.  So decided to master a nice loose rose if it killed me!  Here is my progress.  The way I did it reminded me of when I was at school, cramming just before the exams.

First of all I aplogise for duplicating some of the roses.  I have been trying out collage editing using Picasa and Photoshop.  It's taken that long that I have not bothered checking them!

First of all I sketched some roses to try and understand the form of these beautiful flowers, pencil, elegant finewriter and stabilo water soluble.

Here are several roses.  These are influenced in most part by Jean Haines, Hazel Soan and Janet Whittle.  I am using free paper that I got from an Art Festival (St Cuthberts paper) and have decided I don't like Hot pressed.  Also trying different colours (some not real) therefore trying to add more fun to the exercise.

Now progressing I feel and becoming more experimental.  The real word is winging it!  Most of all the above roses and the other collages are without drawing.  Some painted from roses in the garden.  Middle bottom is a bright brusho painting  which it is in fact quite large and is landscape format, as is the bottom right hand one which is on the impossibly unpredicatable Yupo paper.  Now I was getting to enjoy painting flowers, a feat in itself.

Ah, at last!  I feel I have made progress.  The first is loosely based on a Janet Whittle painting in one of her books and the second is a tribute to my lovely Mum, who loved her garden and her roses.  I picked two different roses from my garden and put them a glass top hat that belonged to her and which I turned upside down and put some fresh water in for the roses.

I actually painted over 40 roses!  I feel all the effort was worthwhile.

A serious post for once.

I wish you all a wonderful rest of the weekend. xx

LAST BRUSHO THIS YEAR

Yes, I am putting brusho away!  There's so much going on. I usually do my brusho at the art club because it is, or sorry, I am soooo messy, and it's our Christmas do today and then that's it til after New Year.  These two paintings I have concentrated on using bleach.  I sprinkled and sprayed the background colours on, covering the whole sheet of paper with colour and then picked out the white with bleach and added some darks.

Dark Stripes were just the background showing through.

This one is actually Sharon Whitley's December challenge, and is from a photograph by Gary Jones of the Ugly House in North Wales.  Just a note to Health and Safety, The snowman didn't suffer any harm from being covered in bleach!!!!!

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

I'd had this painting in mind for a long time.  I wanted to know what Southport (a Victorian seaside resort on the north west coat of England) looked like in Edwardian days. (early 1900's).  So I did some research, which I promptly didn't really follow!! Typical of me.  Here is the progress

Already I didn't think it was going well, wobbly window syndrome! But persisted in a 'gung ho' fashion! And the attitude, it's only a piece of paper

Hubby didn't like the woman in the foreground and I agreed.  I put the pic out on my facebook page for instant advice.  Wasn't as bad as I thought. But the woman certainly was not right, facing in the wrong direction, too prominent and the wheelie bin in front of her not a good idea (was in fact a pram in case you were wondering)

Well here is the revised version.  Lady now leading you into the picture. I  tried to wash her out but wouldn't work completely, so went over her with an opaque colour, cobalt. Used some white guache to try and straighten some of the windows, and added some more cobalt in the sky to balance the picture, also to the lady linking arms. Can't do anything about the wobbly red writing, but hey it's only a piece of paper.

Hope you get a flavour of what this lovely main street looked like years ago.  To finish here is a pic of what it looks like now.

It's a wide tree lined street, with these distinctive verandahs, it's about a mile long with outside cafes, very contintental and looks lovely on a warm sunny day.  On the right is the Town Hall and Art Centre, a bandstand, small green areas an outdoor cafe and fountains.  Very pleasant place to sit awhile or stroll along.

Have a wonderful weekend. Keep snug and warm

BRUSHO, WATERCOLOUR & BLEACH

Thought it would be interesting to see how the two react with bleach.  I had only ever used bleach on Brusho and it was suggested that you could use bleach on Watercolour too.  So Polly had to experiment and here are the results, which you might find interesting.

This is the Brusho chart. Using all the colours that I have.  With the exception of Prussian Blue on all the above I used just one sweep of a brush loaded with bleach (or you can use Milton (a sterilising agent)   And the whiteness of the paper just appeared through as if by magic.   Obviously some reacted better than others.  The paper didn't turn yellow and wasn't damaged.  In fact, I have tried and you can paint over the top when it is dry.  Could be very handy to know. 

Watercolours and exactly the same procedure BUT I had to scrub the bleach into the paint, no single strokes here, so was worried about the paper and the brush (an old brush that I washed constantly) And while I can see that some of the colours allowed the white paper to show through, many of them, even after the vigourous brushing, did not turn white.  The scrubbing affected the wash giving run backs sometimes.  I wouldn't use bleach on a watercolour painting from choice, as I feel it could damage the washes around the bleached area, not to mention quickly ruin any brush.

I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has tried a similar experiment.

Have a wonderful weekend my lovely blogging friends!!

BRUSHO EXPERIMENTS

Still in Brusho mode - but I am itching to get back to my beloved watercolours, (six weeks since my holiday with Hazel Soan was watercoloured out) and today am putting Brusho away and getting out my w/c palette. 

These two paintings though are a little experimental, and I also wanted to try my new brusho colours and the effect of bleach on each of them, as I feel this is an important part of using this exciting medium.

This was painted by drawing the figure, then using candle wax for the highlights around the figure and on the skirt, then woosh in with the Brusho.  I used bleach for part of the legs.

First I used Indian Ink and cocktail stick to draw in the outlines, then I used salt in the background top and bottom, love the effect!  I didn't have to do anything, it did it all by itself. I used cobalt thinking I could bleach out the snow.  Not that easy.  Used bleach then a damp magic sponge over the top.  So determined was I to get back to white that a ruined the surface of the paper. Never mind, 'It's only a piece of paper'.

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND, KEEP WARM AND CHILLAX, AS THEY SAY THESE DAYS

BRUSHO AND PHOTOSHOP

Thought I'd try a nightscene.  Not easy I know.  And experiment with a mixture of watercolour and brusho.  Firstly I painted a watercolour underwash of pinks, blues and yellows in staining colours.  Then I did the brusho painting using black and a little yellow only.  Using bleach I took out the shape of Blackpool Illuminations from the Brusho,  no drawing, I expected the non staining watercolours to still be there, giving the lights gentle colours showing through.  However, the bleach took out everything.  This was a surprise as I thought bleach didn't work on watercolours.

I was now frustrated!!!   So, I photographed the painting and then, inspired by Rita Vaselli's blog who played around with photoshop recently (Check out her our wonderful blog, beautiful paintings, and someone who experiments and loves art so very much). So I changed the hue and saturation on two of them (the vivid colours) and the other one is a filter and is supposed to be stained glass (you need to look at this one larger to see the effect. It was fun seeing the different colours and effects that you could achieve.  Boredom is my enemy and sometimes I need to find an exciting friend!!!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

BRUSHO CRAZY!!!

Brusho crazy is what I have been this last week.  I have Joanne Boon Thomas's ebook and DVD Brusho Moments, at last. So, armed with my brusho, brushes, bleach and enthusiasm, and fear of a change in the warm weather (I wanted to paint outdoors as I am a very messy painter), I had fun, fun, fun trying out some of the exercises, and then painting without the safety net of the book and DVD.

Exercise mixing the powder in the palette like watercolour.  See how vibrant the colours are. They don't fade like watercolours

This was drawn with a stick and ink and spraying method

Well I am over the moon with this one! Some negative painting here.  This was following a superb red poppy that was demonstrated by Joanne.


Money well spent if you ask me.  I have had a ball.  Got more ideas in my head but need to set up the cold garage, which is away from the house, as a makeshift Brusho studio.  Buy some thermals and fingerless gloves.

THE END OF RED!!!!

Boy did I have a good time painting things in my new vibrant semi opaque Daniel Smith Pyrrol Scarlet. Thanks people for your challenges.  Here are the last of them. Will it really be the last of my red subjects ........... for now yes.  So here they are with the names of the challengers.

 Scarlet Woman from Lyndi Lou Lou I have named her Scarlett Pyrrol the Prima Ballerina

Then you get one bright spark that says something odd like Blood, and this is what I came up with. Thanks Keith Hornblower!

 Red Shoes (chickened out and did only one) Sharon Whitley and Joan Violet Stretch

 Tomatoes, Beverley Wells

 Red Wellies, yep done this week and it's not really worked, but I don't mind showing you any way.  My challenge as I suddenly thought of something red that I hadn't done.

These were included in the nickers challenge from naughty Beverley Wells.  

Well this shows you what fun you can have with just one colour.  I was experimenting along the way with layers, mixing slightly with other colours, dropping a little of another colour in, using it neat and trying to assess the strength and opacity of this delightful colour.  Now I am redded out!!!!!!!!!  Now I need a glass of red wine (oh no haven't painted that, but then it isn't this bright red, oh dear what am I to do).

DANIEL SMITH PYRROL SCARLET

Boy have I had fun, with a little help from my virtual friends.  I got this new colour and on facebook I just mentioned that I had pyrrol scarlet and wondered what to paint.  Yes, you guessed it out of the blue got some great suggestions, and I managed to do every one.  I will post them in two batches for your perusal!  I found it very inspiring to have these suggestions and I painted subjects that I would never have thought of myself. Hope you enjoy sharing them with me ........

Red and more red and more red -  Batch 1

 This was my idea. To paint a red banana just because ............

 This is also was my idea and was found on Painting Colourful Birds for Fun on facebook

 Someone dared me to do knickers! Yes I dared.  Thanks Beverley Wells

 A Red Letter Day, thanks Ngaire Magalotti.  You will find out what the invitation was later.

Red London Bus, thank you Val Downie

I will put links to the above artists who have blogs on my last 'red' post to thank them for their help.

It's very much like Cad Red as you can see and is semi opaque.  I tried neat paint, running other colours into the paint, two or 3 thin washes.  Really trying to experiment with it's qualities.  And how often to we get to paint in red?  More to follow..................

STILLMAN & BIRN EXPERIMENTS

I've heard many artists mention Stillman & Birn sketchbooks that I just had to have one as of now!!!  But there are so many to choose from. Got mine from Jacksons Mail Order in the UK, though they are not in their catalogue. I got my beautiful spiral bound Zeta Smooth paper book. So hot here (a British heatwave) that I decided to walk into town and sketch early morning.

 First project was to use my Stabilo 88 water soluble pens black and brown.

(Southport has a lovely wide tree lined main street and they are building a Travelodge at one end.  It used to be an old Station, then the Ribble bus Station now Morrisions at the back.  They were taking down the scaffolding).  The paper reacted really well to the Stabilo and and I got some nice shadows using my water brush. The pen felt smooth against the lovely smooth paper. Was happy with experiment 1.

Second project was to use my Elegant Writer water soluble pen black. The ink spreads far more with this pen than the Stabilo.

I am particulary fond of this pen when I want to work really quickly.  Quick pen lines and a gentle touch with the water brush pen is all you need.  This sketch was a 'whoosh' sketch whilst waiting for the bus (not much more than 5 mins and a touch here and there on the bus (which wouldn't keep still) !  This process was perfect, the reaction of the ink and the brush pen, just what I wanted. Was happy with experiment 2.

Following day (actually this morning) there were some lovely clouds making the temperature a little more pleasant for my 45 min walk into town. Sat down at 8.45 am raring to go. Set out my mini watercolour travel set with my plastic double dipper (used for oils) as my water containers, that I can clip onto my paper, if required.

Third project was to use watercolour and pen.

Lord Street again with it's lovely glass verandahs and this is Costa Coffee. Did quick pencil sketch then put on the watercolour.  Here I came unstuck.  Even though it was hot the watercolour stayed on the surface of the silky smooth paper and wouldn't dry. It was in globules.  I did manage to mix colours on the paper, but my patience was tested even more when I tried to do the peoples clothes, the fine detail just were blobs. Consequently took me longer than if I had used watercolour paper.  Eventually, I added some waterproof ink marks. Good news is it didn't cockle.

Results mean that I will be restricted to my water soluble pens, otherwise the book might be flung to the far corners of the earth! Perhaps I should have ordered the Beta series.  Could anyone give me their opinion on what I thought was the ultimate sketchbook.

LONDON'S WEST END

This is the third time I have attempted a night scene in watercolour.  I'm finding it really, really, difficult. Getting colours dark enough yet not muddy is really hard in watercolour and I feel this subject would be better in oils or pastels.  But old intrepid here will not give up.  This is my best night scene so far.  Wonder if anyone else has tried this subject,  I haven't seen any on blogs. Oh, and by the way I wasn't drunk when I painted this, the paper was cockled and that is why the lines are crooked, so there!

I've had three days cutting back on my internet use, and it has been nice to have a life! Reading, lunching out, gardening etc.  Can I last any longer without my internet friends? Now that is the question.

YUPO REVIEW

YUPO PAPER - Synthetic/plastic paper/ you can't tear it  - My Notes only

If you are wondering about trying this new paper, you may be prepared to wade through these notes that I made for myself.

Yupo is great fun to use and experiment with.  I love it.  You get textures you would never be able to do any other way.  So each painting is unique.  Here are some things I have learnt over the past few days, either from my own experimentation or looking on the internet. 

I hope you like my latest proper painting on Yupo.  I feel it's a big improvement on my first, (previous post) and it took no time at all.  I found you need to paint thicker than normal (well I did for watercolour).

Finished painting Silver Birch trees and water movement  taken out with damp tissue

Watercolour before taking out trees

You can't build up glazes or paint over your work as anything damp will affect paint already on the paper. You may find good effects by doing this though?

Good for practicing composition etc as you don't waste your usual paper. Wipe off when finished. If you do get grease on paper eg fingerprints or over use the paper, clean with soapy water.

Staining colours still stain eg. Alizarin, Winsor Violet also pen and ink drawing will leave an indentation on the paper.

Apparently you can spray with fixitive at least 15" away or you will disturb the paint or you can use a hair dryer but it will move the paint around. Haven't tried either of these.

Would be great fun or economical for children as you can paint and wipe over and over again.

For detail use less water but take care as any contact may still affect paint already on paper.

Store in clear sleeves to save painting from damage when you have done a masterpiece!!!

My experiment to remove when paint dry/damp to bring back white of paper, or alter composition etc.,  I used water on a tissue, a damp or wet brush.  A rubber didn't work:-

Watercolour wiped off easily

Acrylic ink impossible

Acrylic tubes easily

Water soluble oils easily

Drying time:-

Acrylic ink pooled and was very slow.  Tacky for ages and dried very hard. May be an advantage.

Watercolour took well over an hour

Water Soluble oils took forever (but oil does) well over 24 hrs

Acrylic tubes dried the fastest.

Mixing the colour on the yupo:-

Watercolour flowed and mixed well but left a trail of brush marks, this gave the texture.

Acrylic inks didn't flow freely with each other

Oil  the most difficult as brush strokes were very pronounced, hardly covering the paper even when thick.

I wouldn't use oils or acrylic inks. That is just my personal opinion.

Apart from the Red Ink I managed to wash off easily the other colours.

You can buy the paper from SAA(in the UK) or Amazon

Go to Google Images 'yupo paintings' some artists have created some wonderful paintings. Worth a look.

It really is like being a child with a new toy.  It will take a while to sort of control the paint on this paper, if ever, but if you like it then it would be another string to your bow.

Happy Yupo Painting!

BRUSHO PAINTINGS

I have returned the Brusho to Enid  The adventure is over for now!  In August I go to Joanne Boon Thomas for a day workshop, so that should be fun, fun, fun. Here are three paintings and a pic of the box, especially found on the internet for Renate.  I have found you can buy it from Amazon uk 12 colours £17.13 and 8 colours for £12.50 (+ postage ofcourse).

Ok here goes - First one is entitled The Angel of the North West.  Based on the Angel of the North in Northumberland. You can just about see her tiny face

This next one is Under the Sea 

This was Marion's idea (my art teacher) because I wanted to preserve the beautiful bursts of colour.

Finally, this one ended up really dark, I think this is a problem to be aware of when using a dye based medium. And no way can you wash it out.  I didn't want to use bleach as I figures this may damage the paper. I had sprayed it and dried it vertically and then added crumpled up cling film, and lo and behold these trees appeared from nowhere, not only trees but little creepy faces and animals have been added. I have called it The Sinister Forest.

I do hope you have enjoyed sharing these experiments with me. They are all 16 x 10 inches and on rough paper.  You haven't seen my hands dirty with picking up just a few crystals and dropping them on the paper, or my cuffs bright orange from touching the paper when painting my mostly negative shapes. We have a door handle that is red, and I did try and paint outdoors when I created the first starbursts. When I go to the workshop I will need overalls, gloves and who knows what will happen.  What fun!

BRUSHO

I've been having such fun this week, experimenting with Brusho in class. A friend brought some in for me to try that she had used for textiles. Here is a taster of Brusho. Polly style. You may have heard of it. It is like table salt.  I am going on a course in August with Joanne Boon Thomas (check out her site, her work is fabulous). Well I had no idea what to do with it.  I soaked the paper and picked up a few grains and dropped them onto the wet paper like you would salt on watercolours. Woosh! It  looked like fireworks on the paper.  But what to do with it next?  The first pic I made into a tree from La La Land.  I realised that if I put the paper upside down it would run and look like grass, well sort of.  The second I just used two colours, or was it three, and then when dry I used negative shapes to make flowers and added some raw sienna watercolour.

It's a happy tree! (Brusho w/c branches)

Brusho colours Turquoise, red and blue then added raw sienna watercolour

I took the Brusho home and was so worried about the mess I painted outside. I did the same but decided not to use my fingers as they were still blue and purple so picked up a few grains on a brush and dropped them on the wet paper (my hands were still a mess when I'd finished) sprayed some water on the painting and put it vertical. Then I put screwed up cling film on the top and left to dry. My hands were cold and painful by this time but I was determined to finish.  This painting is in progress ......

My idea was that I didnt want to use it like watercolour, what's the point, might as well use watercolour! So wanted to do something completely different, for me!  Talk about exciting.

Brusho explosion! This is what it looks like after dropping in just a few grains of and dried flat! I didn't have to do anything else.

Cling film added


Hope you enjoyed reading about brusho.

OX GALL

I saw on facebook someone using ox gall when for an effect when painting a beautiful red cardinal bird. So, what did I have to do, go and buy some!!!  Here are my exercises and comments, for anyone who hasn't come across it.  Don't ask me what it's made of I've no idea.

The above were dropped into mainly dry washes, staining colours and non staining.  I found different speeds and reactions with different colours.

Getting more adventurous here.  These were all wet washes.  The best reactions were the bottom two, where a softer line is shown using ox gall on a brush directly into the mixed colour wash, and the second a mixture of ox gall and water wash, where I put in lines of fairly neat paint or pen.

I painted this black bird then painted  neat ox gall on his back and head for highlights.  

This was playing with brush strokes into a wash of  water and ox gall.  All the lines are soft and haven't dispersed very much.

As far as I am concerned most of what I tried could be done with water.  Probably there is less risk of a run back. But sometimes I love those cauliflowers that you get.

 Conclusion: Possibly a waste of money.  Would be pleased if anyone has something more to add.