Repairing Monotype Prints with Colored Pencil

If you've visited before - you know my printmaking experiments with monotype prints often fall flat (like this one). But I usually bring the Uh Oh Squad of Other Media in to save the day.

Repairing Monotype Prints with colored pencil is one of my favorite fix-it methods. I hope this post inspires you to pull a few of your less than loved monotype prints out of the junk drawer for a little upcycling with other media.

The Right Paper for Hand Transfer

I already know this, but do I listen to my self? Nope. Hand transferring a monotype print works so much better with smooth, less toothy and textured printmaking paper. Arches 88 is one of my smooth surfaced favorites for spoon or baren transfers of monotypes - with one important caveat.

There is no sizing in Arches 88, so adding wet media will bleed past where you've applied it. So, no watercolors on top of your prints. BUT, it handles printmaking inks and hand transfers beautifully, and its bright white, sturdy surface is a luxurious printmaking paper.

Paper and Pigment Matchmaking

If you're feeling uninspired, but you still want to play with art supplies, you can dive into a test of your printmaking papers and transferrable drawing pigments for monotype prints.

Cut strips of all your printmaking papers, label their brand and weight, and tape them to a glass or acrylic/plexiglass sheet. Use the tape as a hinge to flip the papers over (see above) and lay some of your pigments down, with masking tape labels. Flip the papers back over all your pigments, lay a sheet of newsprint down, and press evenly with your preferred spoon or baren.

Test Your Supplies - Take Notes

You can do this hand transfer pigment to all sorts of papers test three times - so you get results with dry paper and dry pigments, then again with soaked and blotted paper on dry pigments, and the third time with dry paper and atomized/misted pigments. See which combinations work the best.

Take some notes and photos with your phone, and keep the strips of paper taped into a printmaking notebook to remind yourself about the best matchmaking between paper and pigment for future printmaking sessions.

Printmaking Paper Love

I used Arnhem1618 paper (which I love) for this multicolored monotype print. If I'd transferred the print on a press, the pigment coverage would have been much smoother. It's not the paper's fault that I didn't match the paper to the transfer process.

I wish more beginner printmakers would pay closer attention to the matchmaking required in printmaking. The right paper for the right ink for the right transfer process. You're probably thinking - "Hey, Waitaminute! You're mis-matching paper to your transfer process, and advocating that other printmakers approach this with more thought? What the helk?" [NOTE: The word HELK is a combination of Hell and Heck, but less edgy.]

Matching the best of those three starting details (paper, ink, transfer process) will avoid disappointments, and keep a beginner artist's heart in that joyful, success-fueled momentum when things work well. Did I do that on this print? No, I did not.

I make mistakes on matching the right paper to the print process when I'm too excited to stop, and I forget to pay attention to the details. Or, I'm out of the right paper, and I'm winging it. I confess that impatience and excitement to keep going win over good sense in my studio.

And that's when you bring in the Medic of Monotype Repair - Colored Pencils.

Colored Pencils to the Rescue

I've had no trouble using colored pencils to repair my failed monotype prints. (I'll put a list of posts on that below.) The inks I prefer (Akua, Daniel Smith, Cranfield, Graphic Chemical and Hawthorne) have all taken the colored pencil pigment on top of the ink quite well.

Especially when the print challenge was a result of toothy paper and mottled, sparse ink. That visible paper speckle is prime texture for colored pencil pigments to grab onto.

As for colored pencils, I have a mix of brands that I'm happy with: Prismacolor, Schpirerr Farben (hard to find these days), Caran D'Ache and Amazon Basics are mixed willy nilly in my pencil holder (I use this one).

Artists Wear Many Hats

If you have a cupboard of monotype prints that fell short of the runway, I hope you'll put your experimenter's hat on, and apply some colored pencil to those prints. If you've already deemed them unloveable, what have you got to lose?

Everyone loves a compelling before and after. Renovations of kitchens, back yards, vintage campers and thrift store upcycles are very popular on social media right now. Engaging your creative noggin to transform old and busted into new and amazing is super satisfying.

Fixing things is also rooted in sustainability, reducing waste, and stick-to-it-ness. We are not quitters, right? So what if the print didn't come out all nicey-nice and swoonish lovely. Harumph! Eye rolling with hands on hips! We will persevere and Make It So! Go forth and Conquer.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. A perfect example of upcycling from paper artist Marina using Amazon Boxes to create beautiful bird mobiles.

Monotype Print Repairs

In this print of a young girl and her dog, I used colored pencil to refine some of the details on the monotype print. The post includes a list of supplies with links and a few more posts on the subject.

I pulled a monotype print of a portrait of a girl on paper that was exposed to air for a long time, which compromised the sizing. If you're new to the affects of sizing on art paper meant to hold moist pigment, this is an informative read.

Here is a monotype ghost print of a bathroom interior still life with flowers, and the values were so washed out, it was a perfect starting point for colored pencil repairs.

This is another perfect example of my jumping the shark and using the wrong mix of paper, ink and transfer methods. I wag my finger at myself. But alas, the Medic of Monotype Prints is colored pencils.

Art Quote

Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you - as it has ten thousand times - the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow.

Steven Pressfield

The post Repairing Monotype Prints with Colored Pencil appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Still Life Art Inspired by Items Around the House

Have you wandered around your own home to look for still life items to inspire new art? The world is your oyster.... you can arrange family hand-me-downs, assorted bowls, cups or cutlery, food, figurines and flowers, books and toys, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Need better contrast between a bland object and a festive, patterned backdrop? Read this post about using assorted patterned wrapping papers underneath your still life arrangements for a hit of extra panache.

Light Your Still Life

Experiment with lighting by arranging a still life on a sheet of foam core or cardboard so you can move it around like a tray.

Set your arrangement close to a sunny window or take it outside to spin and fiddle with the play of shadows.

Use a gooseneck lamp to try bright, overhead light in a mostly curtained room to exaggerate the length of shadows and bright reflections.

Take Photos of Your Still Life Arrangement

Use the camera on your cell phone to take assorted photos of your still life arrangement. Try a tilted angle from just above the items in your set up, or drop down low and use an ant's view of the towering objects.

Spin the cardboard or foam core platform to collect a variety of angles. Make different items your center stage in the composition. Take tons of photos.

Celebrate Photo Thumbnails

After you've gathered lots and lots of photos with your phone, look at them as small format thumbnails in whichever program you use to on your computer or tablet.

A tiny version of a source photo removes enough details to encourage observing simple shapes.

The composition and arrangement of your items from around the house are more abstracted that way, so you can mark your favorites in small format before you expand them to look more closely.

Still Life Art Inspiration

If nothing in your house is floating your inspiration boat, head over to your local Goodwill or Thrift shop to peruse the shelves for figurines, colored glass vases, reflective silver platters, etc.

Or, go for a walk and collect shells, flowers, stones, leaf patterns, tree shadows and abstracted close ups of architectural elements with your cell phone camera.

Think of the photo capture as pre-motor planning for your next art project. Use that exercise to rev your art engines and begin turning sleepy gears awake to Make Something. You've got this. Have at it.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. Here is a compelling essay about the way creative flow benefits mental health. Art + Science = Inspiration

Art Quote

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got. ~Steven Pressfield

The post Still Life Art Inspired by Items Around the House appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Floral Watercolor Still Life Painting - and why we paint what we paint

Surfing the internet entices surreptitious visits to other artists' studios. The subject of each artists' work varies; we've all seen magnificently executed art featuring everything from a bucket of fish heads to an artfully arranged pile of tangled nude figures.

Why an artist choses to paint or draw a particular subject is their secret, but I'm assuming that what we find enticing to render in our studios has something to do with our personal histories.

We Inherit What We Love

This is my grandmother Margery (above) and one of her dogs (I think this was Gigi, or maybe Buttons, but it was before my time).

My maternal grandparents were from England and Canada, and they met as teenage immigrés working in a Connecticut textile factory. Margery loved flowers, so they saved enough to buy a little flower shop in town. That courageous leap from factory to flower shop launched a deeper love affair with plants, gardening and flowers.

Their affinity, in turn, swayed most of my family to take up gardening; some of them reluctantly, and late in life, but there's dirt under nails and rose-thorn scratches on the arms of everyone I'm related to from this branch on my family tree.

Inherited Flower Loving

It may be very old fashioned to paint flowers, since it's been done and done for centuries, but I *really* like flowers.

They remind me of Margery and Al, and their orchid shed, and their hundreds of varieties of day lilies, and their wildly profuse Schlumbergera. They are both gone now, but I think of them every time one of the plants they gave me sprouts a new shoot, or looks at me and shimmers in an enticingly paintable way.

• Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher

Painting Your Personal History

Have you painted subjects fetched from your personal history, like Frida Kahlo, or Vincent Van Gogh or Andrew Wyeth?

It may be unexceptional to paint birds, or florals, but if that's what lures you into the studio and compels you to pick up a brush or a pencil, it's probably wise to go with those urges. Artists need to act on fleeting urges of inspiration, right?

If You Love Watercolor Still Life

Painting exclusively what you think your patrons will buy is fine, but purely marketed art can have a contrived feeling; sometimes, our intensions peek through the mark making. Every artist selling their work loves brisk sales. But some artists also need to express their own urges and personal affinities.

The adage "paint what you love" is a simple directive to combat waning inspiration. Any memorable saying from the well of art history's centuries of wisdom is worth pondering as a credible observation.  But it may require a visit to your old family photo albums to review the likes and dislikes you unknowingly absorbed. Have you wondered where you got your preferences from?

Looking Backward to Go Forward

Looking backwards at our own personal histories helps guide our creative compass to understand what we paint, and why? Do you lean towards still life, or landscape, architecture, or figurative? Why do you find any of your favorite subjects so appealing?

Are your subjects steeped in nostalgia? Do you prefer political commentary, or word-art, or faces, or mariner scenes? What speaks to you? Pretend we're having a cuppa tea and a platter of cookies while we ponder this and go around the table... Leave a comment and let us hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. Australian artist and printmaker Sandra Pearce posted a beautiful drypoint printmaking project inspired by the theme "Pearl". She harvested inspiration from her personal history through her late father's fishing notebooks, which culminating in a gorgeous concertina book resembling a school of Pearl Perch. Have a look here.

Art Quote

We say, correctly, that every child has a right to food and shelter, to education, to medical treatment, and so on. We must understand that every child has a right to the experience of culture. We must fully understand that without stories and poems and pictures and music, children will starve.
~Philip Pullman

The post Floral Watercolor Still Life Painting – and why we paint what we paint appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Making Slow Art to Slow the Mind

Have you heard murmurings about the Slow Art or Slow Hand movement? Making Slow Art to Slow the Mind? Your peers are closing their screens and reaching for zen.

As a creative tribe - we're all familiar with the notion of getting in The Zone. When your art supplies are moving and you're so deep in the focus of creating, you forget appointments, laundry and time. That's a good place to be. There's less noise. It's very peaceful in the making zone.

We're witness to a Mindful Moments trend right now. The vehicle to get there for some folks is hand work. Making stuff. Slow Stitching. Visible Mending. Sashiko. Embroidery. Needlepoint. Zen doodling. Adult Coloring books. Knitting and Crocheting.

As a result of the Slow Art movement, your great Aunt Hazel's Granny-tinged crafts and hobbies are cool again. Brew a cuppa, grab your idea notebook, and fluff your couch pillows to settle into this link-filled post of inspiration.

Searching for Mindfulness

You've probably seen quick recipe demos on social media featuring the aerial view cookery referred to as Hands & Pans, like Byron Talbott's Blackberry Creme Brûlée.

The appeal of hands & pans is in the accessible, pretty visuals, and brief time format to watch something being made. Food preparation demonstration without a celebrity ("hey, even I could do that!") and of course, glorious final results. It's mesmerizing to watch delicious cuisine being prepared, up close, overhead, with gorgeous, appetizing, mistake-free menu ideas.

Mindfulness with Arts & Crafts

Now, you'll also find Reels of Feels with Arts & Crafts. Look at Arounna Khounnoraj's hand block printing and weaving strips of torn fabric to make a pillow (above). Check out Kacie Gilgore's hands carving, inking and printing a linocut. Or Lacey Walker using masking tape and a heat gun to paint graduated layers of watercolor that evolve into an atmospheric landscape.

Watching an over the shoulder, close up view of someone making a thing, and showing us how to do it is very inspiring. The irony is that we're watching the demos on our screens, but in order to make that thing, we'll have to close the screen, or set it aside to put supplies in our hands to get started. Capiche?

How to Do Slow Art?

You can try (or give as a gift) Zen Doodles and adult coloring books.

Cross stitch, embroidery and needlepoint are back.

Try some Tetrapak printmaking from boxed broth containers.

Or Drypoint printing from plastic baked goods clamshells.

How about trying Modern quilting? Take a break, and go through a book that teaches you how to make abstract watercolor paintings. Assemble a raw edge appliqué pillow case. Grow a raised bed of veggies by the driveway! Learn to stitch Sashiko. These are all forms of Mindfulness and Slow Hands.

Slow Art Inpiration Links

• Calvin Lee (above) crochets oodles of Granny Squares during commutes on the subway, and then assembles them into fabulous jackets, cardigans and sweaters. You can watch him work on his instagram account here.

• Praise and encouragement in the form of adult coloring books as a creative calming devise are on the rise in this CNN news piece.

• Ellen Merchant is hand printing bulk linen cloth using wood blocks or linoleum in multiple colors and beautifully graphic designs over here.

What is Visible Mending?

The point of the visible mending movement is to push back against disposable fast fashion.  By making repairs on clothing in a creative and intentional way, you extend the life of a garment meant to be tossed shortly after bringing it into your closet. Creative people are transforming imperfections into decorative features that extend a garment's lifespan.

Visible mending combines sustainability with self-expression, turning mending into an art form that adds personality and a bit of flamboyance to a repair. It's the opposite to hiding the damage. 

Visible mending is a deliberate embellishment to celebrate that a small tear in your jeans was artfully repaired, with flourish, while the other 99% of your favorite denim is still in perfectly good working order.

Meditation Through Creating

Slow art, and slow sew are the same as Slow Hands. There is a trend towards quieting the mind - reaching for handwork as part of a mental health strategy.

Think about phrases like Handmade, Beginner Journey, Junk Journaling. Sit down projects that require little more than Paper, Scissors and Glue, with permission to experiment. Doesn't that sound like a good idea? There is a return to crafting, knitting and crochet. All things meditative.

As artists, we're ahead of the game, because we already understand the Joy of creating. Now, we just have to model that good behavior choice to everyone around us, right?

Why Reduce Screen Time?

If your mind is a pond, screen time is adding to the volume of water, fish, plant life and floaties. When you pick up art supplies, the very act of being Creative - working with your hands - is an outbound stream. You're pouring out, rather then filling in.

Making brings calm to the waters, and lowering the volume and levels of complexity in the basin. Creativity is a form of getting fit - especially when you consider intellectual wellness, and quieting the mind to focus on self care.

Creativity is a form of getting well at the rare but valuable skill of emotional regulation through deliberate re-routing of focus. Moving from screens to tactile objects held in our hands. Fingers wrapped around tools, yarn, embroidery floss, cloth, paper, glue and seed packets. Know what I mean?

Consider Mental clearing vs Mental Hoarding. Terracing the mind in categories to slow the mudslide of feelings brought about by too much news and runaway train feelings. That's what making art, or creative crafts will do for us. Choose a podcast or an audiobook (I'm listening to this one), pick up a pen, a paint brush, a glue stick, or a sewing needle, and make something. You've got this.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. Have you ever used cut-outs from magazines to make a Vision Board? Try this tutorial if you're interested in creating a visual reminder to stay on course and reach your goals.

Art Quote

Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone, Kindness in another's trouble, courage in your own. ~Adam Lindsay Gordon

The post Making Slow Art to Slow the Mind appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Learn Beginner Painting Practice with Miniature Watercolor Studies

Fear of the blank page is something artists have struggled with for all of history. What to paint while staring at all the potential - and the pressure - of the blank paper. Ease into learning painting as a beginner with miniature watercolor studies.

What genre to choose - still life, figurative, landscape?

Where to get reference materials? How to lay it out on the page, and what if drawing is a challenge too?

Out of Time

We smother ourselves with queries and uncertainty about how to start till we run out of painting time.

Life-obligations sneak in to lure with feelings of productivity, rather than staring at what we aren’t making at the art table. So, we go fold laundry or empty the dishwasher instead of making art.

The frustrating thing about this cycle is that we do this to ourselves.

No one else is pressuring us to use what is typically occasional painting time to crank out a masterpiece.

Start Small

What if you shrink that blank paper? Instead of starting with a watercolor block that’s 11x14, try cutting or tearing a sheet of your favorite painting paper down to small, manageable squares.

If you have a variety of watercolor paper brands and weights, cut a pile of them and label the backs so you can test each of them with your pigments.

Play with Your Paint

Do some warm ups on a small scale. Paint into petite watercolor paper swatches. Paint on wet paper, and dry paper. Drip, Smudge, Drag and Scumble with your pigments and brushes.

Brew some tea, and get yourself a cookie. Consider this reserved time with small painting a date night with your pigments. Get acquainted. Court each other. Be kind about it.

Start Small

After warming up with some loosey juicey color washes, tape down a few more of your favorite watercolor papers. Use reference photos from your phone to map out some shapes to guide your paint brush.

If it's easier (it's certainly faster) trace your photos onto the paper.

Print the images from your phone using a home printer. Make them small so they'll fit the swatches of paper you prepped.

Use wax-free, erasable graphite transfer paper (like this stuff) behind your photo to trace (gently) the basic shapes of your image onto the watercolor paper. This will help you get started faster.

Let it Go

Another benefit of miniature watercolor studies is permission to let it go if your finished piece isn't what you'd hoped for.

Since your work is small, it didn't take as many hours as a large watercolor. Also, pay attention to that fact that you've actually been PRACTICING incrementally, rather than trying to churn out a huge masterpiece. Pat on the back for you!

You haven't "wasted" art supplies, as these paper swatches and the paint on them are minimal.

Let's pretend you're dissatisfied with your tiny watercolor practice painting.

Since the work is small, you can slip it into a folder, or a magic drawer, and later - play with colored pencil or pastel on top of the watercolor for yet MORE practice. See? How cool is that? I knew you'd agree!

Have Courage

Fire your inner critic before you begin, and try a little direct painting. Instead of drawing first, use your brushes to lay in general shapes of your subject.

Give the paper a chance to dry - this is always a good experiment when you have several small paper swatches taped down to a support. You can flip through and paint on one swatch while the other is drying.

Drawing with a Brush

Another experiment you can try is drawing with your watercolor brush. In the image below, I've created a boundary with pencil, and applied a transparent layer of burnt sienna watercolor as a background field.

After that dried, I added a teeny drop of cad red to my burnt sienna well, and used a number 8 round brush tip to sketch a face.

Take a Breather

Letting each layer of watercolor dry before adding more, I continued refining details on the face, hair and background.

Sometimes, this approach - starting and stopping to work with assorted tiny practice watercolor paintings simultaneously forces us to Slow Down.

Pausing in the sometimes white knuckled process of painting to go add a layer to one of the other swatches gives our brains a breather.

That little break can leave enough room for an Ahah Moment of clarity in method or color or approach by the time you return to each little painting.

Brush Miles

The phrase brush miles refers to the amount of paint strokes it takes to truly practice painting. Each drag of your pigment loaded brush against paper adds to your accumulated miles, and brings you new layers of skill.

Aim for brush miles, rather than mastery. Focus on the joy of creating, instead of the pressure of perfection. Search for tiny advancements in your practice, and praise your growth, as well as your effort.

Talk to yourself with encouragement, rather than criticism. Use the same voice on yourself that you'd modulate to encourage a grandchild learning to tie a shoelace. There is no elevator to make you a better painter, so you'll have to take the stairs.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. If you're looking for tips to duct tape the mouth of your inner critic, maybe this book will help: Your Inner Critic is a Big Jerk & other truths about being creative.

Art Quote

It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won’t tire and give up, if you aren’t busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed.

Marcus Aurelius

The post Learn Beginner Painting Practice with Miniature Watercolor Studies appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Sharing Your Art Online with the Whole World

The Hard Work of Making

Are you considering uploading your art on a blog or posting your creative pursuits on social media? Have you ever shared your art online - with the whole world? (It's not as frightening as you think.)

As a seller of art, I'm seasoned with the catch-and-release cycle of Making. You make the art, you share the art, you let the art go live with someone else.

The Work of Making

Artists earn clarity about being creative by making a lot of art. Showing people the work you've done can be a crucial step in preparations to make more work.

Making art is rich with thinking time. The process of making - all by itself - is layered and complex. In the Hard Work of making, Active Creativity strengthens us in ways we might not realize;

• A familiarity with art-making tools (pigments, papers, brushes, inks, etc.)
• Spending time alone (with ourselves)
• Managing time in an unstructured environment (no boss, no deadlines)
• Increasing our capacity for grit (sticking with a project even when it's challenging)
• Embracing the notion of being a beginner (getting cozy with repeated failures till we figure it out)
• Celebrating the finish (the Ta-Dah Moment of making your imaginings into something showable)

Art Hoarding

After all that hard work in the making of your art, you might feel an urge to keep, or cling to what you just made. 

Be acquainted with the difference between the artist’s making brain and the artist’s attachment brain.

Making art is the important work we do as artists. It grows fertile in creative expression, inspired ideas, self-discipline, experimentation, and focus.

Hoarding the art we make has a suspicious connection to pride, ego and attaboys.  Feeding those sentiments can seduce an artist into complacency in the studio. You don’t try as hard if you’re sitting idle, staring at your best painting.

Trust Yourself

Clinging to your work also says something about lack of trust – in yourself. 

If you believe you’ll never paint anything as well as your favorite painting, hoarding your best piece of art may be a real-life manifestation of that nay-sayer’s voice in your head.  

Title it, scan it for documentation in your files (you can stare at it on your screen, even if someone buys it), and share it with the world. Post it somewhere. Or post it in a lot of somewheres.

Re-route the map in your head. Drive your art-brain away from hoarding, share your work, and set a course to get yourself back to Making.  

Trust that you’ll have more creative successes in the studio because you’re earning them with brush miles.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S. If you're a reader, and inspiration has been hiding, consider The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. It's in my reading queue after several artist friends raved about it.

Art Quote

To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. ~Rick Rubin

The post Sharing Your Art Online – with the Whole World appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Small Figurative Studies in Watercolors from Life at Home

I'm not sure what makes an artist lean towards a particular flavor of art, but I've always been pulled in the direction of quiet images of every day life.

In the art world, images of ordinary people doing common activities like reading, working or lounging with family are called genre scenes. They depict day to day life in the house and the yard, and they're often sentimental and familiar.

Use What You Have - Make Things from That

Almost all of my figurative work is based on surreptitiously captured cell phone photos of friends and family.

If the inspiration to paint or draw was prior to cell phones, I've used old family slides (my father and his father and his father's father were all camera kooks). Have you browsed your old family albums for inspiration?

Paint and Draw What is Familiar

As our family's self-appointed genealogist, I have a treasure trove of vintage family photos from the end of the 1800's to the early 1990's.

I've encouraged fellow artists to draw, paint and collage from family photos, because the features, carriage and bone structure of previous generations is innately familiar to us. That makes you one step closer to "knowing" the image you're trying to capture.

The Artist is in Charge

One of my favorite benefits from choosing family photos to depict genre scenes is the artist's ability to transform boring into fabulous.

In the two images above, the left side shows the painter Pierre Bonnard's (1867-1947) kitchen window and a portion of the view outside. There is even a plate of fruit on the table in the foreground, but no part of the image is remarkable.

Pierre's painting of the scene from a slightly different angle is on the right - one of many he did from that room - and it's so very lovely. Look at how he made that window amazing with color, light, composition and temperature. Isn't it great?!

We artists notice things that other folks pass by. It might be a reflection of boats on the water's surface in a harbor, or the way mountains in the distance look purple against a blue sky. We might see the way a window pane shadow curves around the shape of a sleeping child on the couch. It's part of our charter as noticers to help the rest of the world slow down so they can consider, observe and see.

Pick up your art supplies, flip through your family photos, and make something soon.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the nest post -

Belinda

P.S. If you like Bonnard, I wrote a series about his work over here. And for a sense of scale, take a look at this short video from an exhibit of Bonnard's work in The Phillips Collection.

Art Quote

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.

~Camille Pissarro

The post Small Figurative Studies in Watercolors from Life at Home appeared first on Belinda Del Pesco's Art Blog Belinda Del Pesco.

Colored Pencil Portrait Drawing of a Girl and her Cat

I've been experimenting a bit with colored pencil portrait drawing on various papers, and testing methods of blending.

The surprise in all the methods I tested to smooth the waxy pigments - even on toothy paper - was not the tool I expected to be the best choice - a blending pen.

I thought for sure I'd have to use one form or another of a liquid to break down the pencil's dry pigments in order to get them to blend or to soften their edges.

Blending Colored Pencils

I've used colored pencil blending pens, paper pastel stomps, and brushed-on blending medium to merge layers of various temperatures and hues in colored pencils.

Who doesn't love trying a new art supply? But after purchasing each of the manufacturer's recommended blending options, the tool that worked the best (and easiest) was paper towels! (I use Bounty in printmaking, painting and drawing projects, because they shed less lint.)

The only caveat is that the paper under your drawing has to be sturdy. You can see my paper towel in the photo above.

I had just used it to blend blue, orange and green into the folds of the yellow butterfly dress around the neck and arm. The paper I used was not damaged after rubbing. But soft, pulpy paper will pill and roll when rubbed too much while blending the pencils.

Some of the pigment comes off the paper onto the paper towel, but plenty stays put, and merges into new colors quite nicely. My only tool then was my finger tip with the paper towel wrapped around it. Simplicity!

On this drawing, I used Strathmore drawing paper, which has a bit of tooth, and it held up beautifully against the friction of paper towel scumbling. Who knew?

Skin Tones and Colored Pencils

I find that skin tones can be challenging with colored pencils. (I've been using and liking Schpirerr Farben and Amazon branded colored pencils lately) It's tempting to select one colored pencil with your best guess at skin tone, but just like with painting, there are many, many colors in skin.

I find it helps to isolate a section you're working on and ask yourself - is this warmer or cooler in color? And then - is it redder, yellower, bluer than the skin next to it?? Is it lighter or darker? Asking that way gives a bit of Q&A structure to the blink-and-stare process of examining colors.

I usually start with a neutral color and then layer several transparent layers of color and temperature. While layering colored pencil, if one color is more potent than the other, it can completely cover the previous layers. That's when the paper towel worked best.

The cat's fur has brown, blue, purple, green and burgundy colors blended together in his stripes.

By buffing the uppermost colored pencil in a 2-4 layer application, I found that all four hues merged together a little more wholesomely. It took less squinting to really see the desired effect.

Colored Pencil Tools

If you're a colored pencil aficionado, please leave a comment with your best tools. I always discover such treasures when you share details of your studio practice in the comments, and I'm grateful for that.

I don't mean to discount other colored pencil blending options, because some of them are very cool. Have you ever tried Holbein Meltz colored pencil blender? It's like a magic liquification tool, and well worth experimenting with. Especially on landscapes and floral drawings.

But if you've never tried a good old fashioned paper towel, I hope you give it a spin on your next colored pencil drawing.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in the next post -

Belinda

P.S In this post, you can learn about the difference between watercolor pencils and standard colored pencils.

Art Quote

Creative work needs solitude. It needs concentration, without interruptions. It needs the whole sky to fly in, and no eye watching until it comes to that certainty which it aspires to, but does not necessarily have at once. Privacy, then. A place apart — to pace, to chew pencils, to scribble and erase and scribble again.

But just as often, if not more often, the interruption comes not from another but from the self itself, or some other self within the self, that whistles and pounds upon the door panels and tosses itself, splashing, into the pond of meditation. And what does it have to say? That you must phone the dentist, that you are out of mustard, that your uncle Stanley’s birthday is two weeks hence. You react, of course. Then you return to your work, only to find that the imps of idea have fled back into the mist ~ Mary Oliver

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