Cats, Gesso and Warped Covers

My love is brilliant, my love is pure....

So I'm coming back into blogging. Why? Because I'm thinking about maybe putting my body of work "OUT THERE" more. Meaning...out for the public and the WORLD to view it. I tend to shy away from myself. While I can look at my artwork and think that maybe...it's not to bad, I still don't know if it's worth sharing with the world or not. 

But I do think I am finding my own voice. 

So let me tell you about this piece. I do a lot of my work while I'm...working. I know this probably isn't the BEST of ideas for my professional career, but that's when I often have time. There are no kids around, the house is quiet and I can drag out my paints without having to constantly interrupt myself with "NO! STOP THAT! DO NOT CLIMB UP THAT FIREPLACE!" 

You know  how it is right? Kids...

I work from home and a lot of my work is done telephonically. So oftentimes my hands are free to sketch, doodle and play around with some of my cleaner media. Lately though, I've been dragging out my Portfolio watersoluable oil pastels. I find myself starting a sketch with them, then layering on other colors, all to be blended with just the heat of my fingers...and maybe a water brush. With this piece though, I reached for my watercolor crayons. 

Caran D'ache watercolor crayons are hands down MY FAVORITE "splurge" art supply. I love how easily they spread across the page, and yet you can go back in to make the color more opaque by using the crayon...as a crayon. I love having a huge range of colors at my fingertips (I splurged for the BIG set). I love how I can get in with them and add tiny details. I love how a little of them goes a LONG way. I love them. 

So I started this cat sketching her out in an orange shade, then started layering in yellows, oranges and reds to create some dimension. I blended using my finger as well as a water brush, and I went back over that when it was dry with more crayon to darken further. For the back ground I rubbed crayon all over then watered it down, adding areas of gesso to soften the colors and create a sort of "haze" to everything. One of my other favorite techniques is to pounce a paper towel with a dab of gesso on it over and over to give a sort of cloudy blobby look. (Blobby is a very technical term...)

That being said, let me speak a moment on Gesso. My boyfriend/partner has us on a very strict budget. While I'm 100% on board with it, we need to pay off some bills and get some things squared away financially, it's cut back on my splurging BIG TIME. So I've been trying to A. use only what I have on hand. and B. find cheap and workable alternatives. I like golden gesso and I thought it was the be all and end all. But I've found something else....Martha Stewart.

I can hear the gasps of horror around the room. I can see people falling off their chairs.

Hear me out.

No, Martha Stewart's brand of "Primer/Gesso" is NOT a apples to apples replacement for golden brand gesso. But is IS a replacement. And a passable one for what I do with it. It comes in a tube of 5 ounces. It's priced around $5.99 but I got it on sale for $3 at some big-box craft store (I don't remember which). What I like about it is that I can squeeze out a little or I can glob out a lot. It's transparent so if you've going for coverage...you'll have to apply more than one layer. But I like that. It drys feeling slightly chalky and not at all plastic, which is something I DISLIKE about Golden. (Golden, to me, feels heavy on the page when dry and has a bit of a plastic feel, which I find tends to make my pages stick together).

The other gesso I like is liquitex. I like that it also comes in a bottle that is squeezable and you can find it in black, white and clear. The clear really leaves a gritty rough surface for you to work on, which is good...and bad...depending on the effect you're going for. Liquitex is also a bit more reasonably priced by comparison. But for now it's still out of my budget so I'll stick with the el cheapo brand.

I sometimes will gesso a page...sometimes not. I use all different kinds of journals. (My boyfriend teased me because I was working on three...at the same time). The cat is done in a hardbound sketchbook from Michael's: "artists loft" which I believe is their store brand. The paper in it is just your basic 60lb sketch paper, but with a light coating of the Martha Stewart gesso, I found it can take a licking. What I don't like about it is I'm only 1/4 of the way into it and the cover is starting to bow and warp. I know...it was cheap. But still, I'm not sure I can finish it at this rate:

 I also am using a Stillman and Birns wirebound sketchbook . This was a christmas gift from my boyfriend and a bit of a splurge..but a real joy to work in! The paper is thick and lovely and the cover is nice and heavy.

Picking back up

My life...is a whirlwind of activity. I created this blog with the desire to focus on the art I was making, but while that was going on, LIFE was being made!

Maybe I should start here fresh. Maybe you'd like to get to know me a little bit before investing in the time to peruse my artwork?

Okay, so I'm a 33 year old woman.That is the base of my descriptors. I'm a mother. I have one son who is 14 years old. He's a wonderful being, full of creative life force and imagination. He's autistic/aspger's disorder.  He doesn't live with me currently. He lives with my parents for various reasons. I'm also "mothering" two boys who belong to my boyfriend/fiance. They also both have autism...so if anybody is keeping count that's THREE boys all with special needs. It gets LOUD in our house!!

Professionally I'm an RN. I work for a globally present insurance company, which means I sell my soul daily to the corporate beast. I am a case manager for medically fragile children. This population is very much my PASSION.

So that's a very VERY brief bio. I'll reveal more in bits and pieces as we go along in this journey together I'm sure. I always wonder how much to "reveal" in blogs, because you learn early in life to keep yourself distanced from your internet presence. But I want you to see "me" and how my life affects my art process. So we'll see where that line goes.

About me as an artist. I'm not sure yet that I "am" an artist. I know that I make art, but I make it for me, for a few friends and co-workers. I make it as a way to deal with emotional stress. I make it to heal. I make it in my art journals and I make it on cheap canvases to stick up around the house. I've been told I have developed a style, and I think I can definately see it! Still, oftentimes I see bits and pieces from classes I've taken and artists I admire. But...that's okay. I'm still plodding forward. Lately I've been becoming more and more enchanted with little creatures and animals and find them sneaking into my artwork...we'll see where that goes. I'm absolutely in LOVE with Juliette Crane and Mindy Lacefield so maybe I'm absorbing some of their muse into myself.

Letraset Pro Markers: An upaid unsolicited review

Okay...I'll start this out with a simple statement. I LOVE these markers. I bought mine on Amazon.com when I was looking for a cheaper alternative to the much beloved copic markers. No...these are NOT exactly like copic markers. I couldn't really tell you the difference because I'm not schooled in such things... but I know copics are freakin' expensive! At over $3 a marker I can't add them to my stash except for a few at a time..on a whim..when I feel splurgish.

So, the Letraset Pro Markers came in a pack of 12 for just over $24. I got two sets, a pastel set and a "Vivid" set and I love them both. I played with them when I first got them, laying down color, then laying another color down over the top of the first. They blend gently together using the blending pen and to some small extent, they are water soluable if you work quickly and immediately after putting the color down. I've found that over paint they smush around nicely with your finger but dry firmly in place. They go over acrylic paint fairly easily with little clogging and they show up fairly well.

Blending and overlaying

The colors are beautiful, bright and vivid as you can see. This was a page just playing around as I watched the Hatfields and McCoys on History. You can see how nicely the colors blend. 

I've bought some of the aqua markers from the same company but I have yet to really try them out. I am definately wanting to get some more sets of these Letraset Pros, and for the price, I can! 

Finding a style

I'm sure people look at my work and think "oh, I can see Tamara Laporte or Suzi Blu in that..." and the truth is, you can. That's because I took classes from both Tam and from Suzi. I loved them, they both opened up my eyes to what I COULD do and set my muse free to start creating my own BHGs (Big headed girls). But have I found my own style?

In some ways, I have. I don't use the techniques of either Tam or Suzi religiously, rather I do a combination of both with a bit of something of my own. I don't use just pencil, just water color. You might find some marker in my work, some acrylic paint, some ink, some charcoal....it depends on what I grab and how I'm liking the piece. I'm noticing a "look" that is mine also, a gesturing, a look to the eyes, a shape of the mouth...a way of laying out back grounds.

It's hard to admire artists so much and yet not look like them. It's hard to find a place that is your own when your inspiration and technique were learned from others. I'm hoping that I'm starting to develop my own "groove" and my own niche. There are many other classes that I would LOVE to take...Jane Davenport for instance. But for now, I'm trying to work on my own "voice", seeing if I can get it to speak louder and bury the layers of the "learned" beneath it.

Pain and Paint

Melancholia

There is a touch of sadness that always seems to come out in my art girls. A bit of loneliness, melancholy or just outright heartache. I don't always set out from a place of "pain" to paint, but often bits of pain leak out from my fingers, seeping from my soul to the page in a way I never intend or imagine when I first start to sketch or paint.

Spark

I make no secret that I struggle with depression. It's been an ongoing battle for me since at least 1996, probably much earlier. I fight anxiety and a deep seated pain that lurks always just behind my eyes, rooted in my heart. I can't pull it out, I can't get rid of it. I can only go along for the ride and see where it takes me. So far, art has been a surprising ingredient in this battle. I've read many times that genius breeds madness. But I wonder if it's not the other way around? Not that I'm a genius...far from it more likely. But there is a certain madness to some of the worlds  most creative minds that is undeniable. 

Everlasting

We are, in part, creatures of our environment, but there are also larger forces at work around us. I read once that Shamans of ancient tribes often struggled with great pain and illness before coming to their calling as great healers and magicians. I wonder if there is something to that, if there is a calling to suffer in order to strengthen what is inside? Is it fate that depression lurks inside me, or is it simply bad genes? The luck of the DNA draw? 

Whatever it is, it is definitely a part of what makes me. It is so deeply rooted inside of me that even though on most days I am well medicated and functional, it always looms and lurks, crafting my decisions and feeding my creative urges. 

Merrie Lughnasadh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnasadh

The start

The start of this blog and the photo isn't the best of quality...I know.

This piece is markers, acrylic paints and ink. I really enjoyed doing this, it was an experiment.