Mo' progress... I laid in a few more washes of warm white and then put in the first wash of Mars black within her hair. Same mix as mentioned before, though not as watered down as the first wash: more matte medium + paint + less water. So this wash really isn't as 'washy' as the first. Still fairly transparent because it's heavy on the mudium though.Here's a detail. You can see that I haven't redrawn the linework where the second leyer of paint was applied. So that element is yet to come... I'd estimate probably one, maybe two sessions left to go til completion.
Other than that, I sent off two pieces to Australia for the StencilFest in Melbourne and Syndney (read 2 posts prior for more info). I went with Shadows/Screamer [version blue] and with the original Hangman. Hopefully they sell... we shall see
Posted at 2:31 AM on Saturday, April 29, 2006
This week I began to lay in the first wash. Acrylic + matte medium + water. Heavily diluted with the water and not much paint. Building up slowly, until I feel the opacity is enough.
After laying the first wash in, I had to re-trace some of the linework to ensure that it doesn't get lost along the way. It gets kind of tedious, but I'd rather that than have draw all the interior linework at the end. That's too risky = to near the finish and have a poorly drawn line throw off the flow of the drawn elements. Sure I could paint over the mistake, but then I'd have to commit to solid fills. (And remember I'd mentioned earlier that the overall technique would be to save the translucence in order to keep the background connected?) So there you go. No 'mistake linework' allowed in order to do that.
This week I began to lay in the first wash. Acrylic + matte medium + water. Heavily diluted with the water and not much paint. Building up slowly, until I feel the opacity is enough. After laying the first wash in, I had to re-trace some of the linework to ensure that it doesn't get lost along the way. It gets kind of tedious, but I'd rather that than have draw all the interior linework at the end. That's too risky = to near the finish and have a poorly drawn line throw off the flow of the drawn elements. Sure I could paint over the mistake, but then I'd have to commit to solid fills. (And remember I'd mentioned earlier that the overall technique would be to save the translucence in order to keep the background connected?) So there you go. No 'mistake linework' allowed in order to do that.
Posted at 9:44 PM on Friday, April 21, 2006
After the outline was projected, I went over it with a Sharpie on the background painting. I find that it's a good choice of marker because it's thin black and permanent. There's all sorts of other arty markers that are similar and billed as being artist-specific tools (Pilot fineliners, Zig writers, etc...), but really Sharpies always get the job done for me.
I can then build up washes of acrylic over the outline and I'm still able to see it well enough. If the outline starts to get lost as layers are built-up, I can always redraw it in spots as needed (to keep the form clear).
I finished the striped stockings by slowly building up really washy glazes. I wasn't sure how tranluscent vs. opaque I wanted the stripes to be, so I was carefully laying in the washes to gauge this. They ended up being fairly opaque in the end, but since I wasn't sure at the start, it was important to build this way. Acrylic isn't forgiving in terms of transluscence: once you fill it in solidly, it's gonna stay that way.
The stripes aren't completely solid though. There are flashes of the background that come through in spots and the whats I wanted to keep clear.
In other news, the Stencil Festival is getting closer. It's happening May 18-22 this year and the show will travel to Sydney for a week a bit after that as well. This year, rather than being an entirely open exhibition again, they decided to regulate the participants in order to keep the quality up to par. I'm happy to report that I am one of the 30 artists (selected from the open call, worldwide) that was selected for the exhibition. That's pretty sweet. Although I really haven't done any stencil work recently, I do have some prior work that I'd held onto which I will submit.
Also remember the two coasters that I submitted to the I <3 Beermats exhibition? I got a message from J at the Marrs Bar in Spain (where the show was originally held) that said:
"The beer mats are now travelling round europe, they are now in Barcelona from the 18th of March till the 15th of April, at the NIU gallery/shop. You are welcome to pop in and check out the wonderful beer mats if you are in BCN. If you wish to collaborate in the exposure of the beer mats please let me know."
After the outline was projected, I went over it with a Sharpie on the background painting. I find that it's a good choice of marker because it's thin black and permanent. There's all sorts of other arty markers that are similar and billed as being artist-specific tools (Pilot fineliners, Zig writers, etc...), but really Sharpies always get the job done for me.I can then build up washes of acrylic over the outline and I'm still able to see it well enough. If the outline starts to get lost as layers are built-up, I can always redraw it in spots as needed (to keep the form clear).
I finished the striped stockings by slowly building up really washy glazes. I wasn't sure how tranluscent vs. opaque I wanted the stripes to be, so I was carefully laying in the washes to gauge this. They ended up being fairly opaque in the end, but since I wasn't sure at the start, it was important to build this way. Acrylic isn't forgiving in terms of transluscence: once you fill it in solidly, it's gonna stay that way.
The stripes aren't completely solid though. There are flashes of the background that come through in spots and the whats I wanted to keep clear.
In other news, the Stencil Festival is getting closer. It's happening May 18-22 this year and the show will travel to Sydney for a week a bit after that as well. This year, rather than being an entirely open exhibition again, they decided to regulate the participants in order to keep the quality up to par. I'm happy to report that I am one of the 30 artists (selected from the open call, worldwide) that was selected for the exhibition. That's pretty sweet. Although I really haven't done any stencil work recently, I do have some prior work that I'd held onto which I will submit.
Also remember the two coasters that I submitted to the I <3 Beermats exhibition? I got a message from J at the Marrs Bar in Spain (where the show was originally held) that said:
"The beer mats are now travelling round europe, they are now in Barcelona from the 18th of March till the 15th of April, at the NIU gallery/shop. You are welcome to pop in and check out the wonderful beer mats if you are in BCN. If you wish to collaborate in the exposure of the beer mats please let me know."
Posted at 2:09 AM on Friday, April 14, 2006
Some of you may know this amazing girl on the right. Some of you may not. I think there's a very good chance she may become a theme in my art (because she's awesome)... go team awesome. In the actual version, there isn't an 'artfully placed' black bar...
A line drawing was created from a photo, the linework was then tweaked and perfected on a tranparency. The tranparency was projected onto the background (18x24 inches) and outlined. Getting closer to the finish.
That's where it's at right now. More to come...
Some of you may know this amazing girl on the right. Some of you may not. I think there's a very good chance she may become a theme in my art (because she's awesome)... go team awesome. In the actual version, there isn't an 'artfully placed' black bar...A line drawing was created from a photo, the linework was then tweaked and perfected on a tranparency. The tranparency was projected onto the background (18x24 inches) and outlined. Getting closer to the finish.
That's where it's at right now. More to come...