Blodget Music

Jim Blodget1995

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Dory boats are small, flat bottomed fishing boats designed to launch and land from the beach at Pacific City on the Oregon coast. Haystack Rock is a mile off the beach and is the tallest of several large rock monoliths along the Oregon coast.

This is the second small 8×8 inch painting I’m donating to Artists in Action to sell at the World Beat Festival at Riverfront Park in Salem, Oregon to raise funds for the group.

Jim

Click the picture to see a larger version.

The local group of artists that I belong to (Artists in Action) will be holding a sale at the end of June (at the World Beat Festival in Salem) to raise money for the group. This year members are painting 8×8 inch stretched canvases and donating them to sell unframed for $20 each. Quite a bargain for an original painting. This is the one I’m donating. I painted it today using acrylics. Let me know if you’re interested in purchasing the painting. I’ll put a sold sticker on it.

Jim

Poppies and Lupin

I’m testing Faber-Castell Gel Sticks. These watercolors in gel form are meant for kids. They are like a twistable crayon and come in a set of 12 colors. I thought I would try them out on a flower sketch.

The Gel Sticks are a lot more water soluble than tempera sticks and they smudge more which makes them easier to blend and mix.

When I do a color test like this I like to speed things up by tracing a reference photo. The first thing I did was clip a piece of overhead transparency film to a clear clipboard, place the clipboard over my iPad, and trace the picture with a wet-erase black pen.

Poppies and Lupin Line Drawing

I then placed the clipboard on a light table, clipped a piece of watercolor paper over the transparency tracing, masked the edges with blue painter’s tape, and blocked in the colors using the Gel Sticks. Once I had the colors blocked in I took the clipboard off the light table and worked on the rest of the sketch looking at the reference photo on the iPad. This saves having to do a layout sketch in pencil on the watercolor paper and makes for a cleaner drawing as you don’t see pencil marks beneath the colors.

I wanted to see if I could add detail using just the Gel Sticks without using colored brush pens. The Gel Sticks are a smaller diameter than the tempera sticks. I found I could add detail by carefully using the edge of the Gel Stick.

I used a flat waterbrush to spread the color and a piece of paper towel to smudge and blend. I sharpened up some edges by rubbing colors with the damp waterbrush. My final step was to use white ink in a re-fillable marker pen to add back in some whites.

Fabriano 8×10 inch (20.3×25.4 cm) Studio Watercolor Hot Press paper, Faber-Castell 12 Gels Sticks, Arteza flat waterbrush, Molotow 2mm Empty Pump Marker filled with Dr. Ph. Martin’s Pen White.

Gel Sticks Sketch and iPad

All in all a successful test. I like the soft look of this. These Gel Sticks fall somewhere between Mod Paint Sticks (which are tempera paint) and Neocolor II water soluble crayons. They blend well and are easy to carry and use.

Paint sticks and pens and other dry media like crayons and pencils are handy to carry and use on location mainly because you don’t have to wait for them to dry before adding additional layers and you don’t have to carry water and you don’t have to take time to clean a brush between colors. The down side is you can’t mix colors to gray them back or warm them up or cool them down or change the value. They work well for brightly colored subjects, but not for subtle color variations. A traditional watercolor palette or tube paints are better for that.

Jim

She Wolf Experiments

The last two days I’ve experimented with new art supplies. I bought a new Kuretake watercolor palette. It took a month to get here from Japan. So, I was anxious to try out the colors. I decided to use a portrait reference from the Julia Kay Portrait Party group on Flickr. I did a quick pen sketch and used the new palette to color it.

She Wolf Sketch

I also wanted to try tempera paint sticks and brush markers on a portrait. So, today I did a more carefully measured ink drawing and colored it with paint sticks and markers.

She Wolf Portrait

Strathmore 400 Series Watercolor paper 4×4.5 inches (11.5×12 cm), Platinum Plaisir Fine nib fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink, Mod Paint sticks, Arteza Real Brush colored pens, Arteza flat waterbrush, Molotow 2mm empty pump marker filled with Dr. Ph. Martin’s Pen White ink.

These two sketches made me think, “What makes a good portrait”? I assume most people would say the second one is the better of the two as it is more flattering, but accuracy does not always make a great portrait. Just look at Picasso’s portraits of his mistress. However, it really isn’t fair to judge the two because a quick sketch serves a very different purpose from a finished drawing. Both sketches served my purpose which was to test out materials. You see the finished product. I see the process.

Jim

Four Flowers

I did these small flower studies all on the same piece of paper. The first thing I did was adhere the paper to a piece of 2mm Sintra PVC panel with some brushed on acrylic soft gel medium. I let that dry for about an hour under some heavy books. Next I split the page into quarters with blue painter’s tape.

I painted all four the same way. I started each by blocking in the major colors with tempera paint sticks. I then added detail using brush markers, and finally I added a few bits of white using white ink.

I discovered that I could lift colors with a damp paper towel to create lighter values. I could also blend in some white ink with a wet brush to lighten the values.

Lupin

Peonies

Tulips

Iris

9×12 inches (23×30.5 cm) Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media paper, pencil, Mod Paint Sticks, Arteza Real Brush pens, Arteza flat waterbrush, and Molotow empty marker filled with Dr. Ph. Martin’s Pen White ink. Each picture is about 4×5.5 inches (10×14 cm).

Jim

On the Willamette

I did this small study today to test out how watersoluble markers work on a smooth gessoed panel. It’s like working with a limited selection of watercolors. Also I discovered that ink just sits on top of the gesso. It does not stick or sink into it. So, if you apply a second layer, it tends to lift the previous layer instead of building up to a darker more opaque color. The color remains transparent and shows the texture and streaks in the gesso underneath.

6×6 inch (15×15 cm) Sintra PVC gessoed panel, Arteza Real Brush pens, and Arteza flat waterbrush.

Jim

Daffodils in the Woods

I’m looking for a way to do plein air paintings without carrying brushes or water or wet media. I did this small study to see how tempera paint sticks and brush markers handle on canvas panel. I laid in the major areas of color with the paint sticks first and then I added detail with darker colors using the brush markers.

Reference Photo – Daffodils in the Woods

Tempera Underpainting

5×7 (12.5×17.7 cm) canvas panel, Mod Paint Sticks, Arteza Real Brush Pens.

Jim

Camellia Bush

This bush is in our backyard. It’s in full bloom. I’ve been glancing at it throughout the day thinking about how I’d approach sketching it with paint sticks dabbing on the pure color. Finally, before dinner I found the time to sit down and try out my plan.

Fabriano Studio Watercolor hot press 140 lbs 8×10 inch (20.3×25.4 cm) paper, Mod Paint Sticks.

Donnottar Castle

Sketching from Google Street View. Testing tempra paint sticks on smooth paper with water.

Strathmore Mixed Media 400 Series 9×12 inch (22.9×30.5 cm) paper, pencil, Mod Tempra Paint sticks, Arteza flat waterbrush, ArtGraf Viarco 6B water-soluble pencil, Kuretake #13 brush fountain pen with Platinum Carbon Black ink, and Molotow 2mm empty pump marker with Dr. Ph. Martin Pen-White ink.

Freehand vs Traced Underdrawing

Today I did two small sketches (3.5×6 inches each) of the same photo reference to compare sketching freehand and sketching using a traced underdrawing. I did the freehand sketch first.

To get the traced underdrawing for the second sketch I placed a clear clipboard on top of my Fire 7 and traced outlines around the major shapes using a wet-erase black marker directly on the clipboard. I used the wet-erase marker because it would not smudge, but could be easily erased with a dampened tissue. I then took the clipboard off the Fire 7, put a piece of watercolor paper on top of the clipboard, and backlit the tracing with a powerful LED flashlight so I could see the lines through the paper. I colored the sketch first using Neocolor II watersoluble crayons. I then blended the color with a moist waterbrush, and finally came back over the color with pen and ink.

Photo-Tracing-Finished Sketch

I’m pretty good at drawing freehand, but it takes me longer because without an underdrawing I have to take the time to consider shapes, angles, proportions, etc. as I draw. I spent roughly 10 minutes drawing and 10 minutes coloring the freehand sketch and maybe 30 seconds tracing the underdrawing and 20 minutes coloring and finishing the second sketch. The major difference then is that by using a traced underdrawing I am able to shorten the drawing time and have more time for the fun stuff, coloring and finishing the sketch. Composition and accuracy are also helped.

The Fire 7 has a built in camera so I could easily create an underdrawing from a photo while sketching on location. I have also figured out how to transfer photos from my Sony camera to the Fire 7 in case I want to use a camera with better resolution and a zoom lens. Fun stuff.

Jim

Four Ballades: Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23: Largo The Abominal Snowman my-song Frere Jacque

Jim

Slide Miniatures

The other day I found a box of cardboard heat-seal 35mm slide mounts and an old custom built slide mounting press. I wondered if it still worked and if so, how I might put it to good use. It occurred to me that I could do miniature paintings and frame them in slide mounts as a novelty. They might make interesting business cards.

So, as an experiment, I scanned some slides, printed them with my Epson inkjet printer on matt photo paper and mounted the prints in slide mounts. The press still worked.

Next I used one of the slides as a reference and did four miniature paintings using four different media – colored pencil, gouache, watercolor, and colored markers. I had never worked this small before and I wanted to see which medium worked the best at this scale.
I did all four on a piece of 5×7 inch Fabriano Artistico Extra White hot pressed watercolor paper. I did the colored pencil first using Prismacolor pencils. I was able to get detail, but the paper being watercolor paper had quite a bit of tooth. So, the drawing ended up with a lot of texture. If I used colored pencil, I’d have to use a smoother paper or maybe use water soluble pencils.

Next, I tried gouache. I have a 10 tube set of Schmincke Horadam gouache paints. Mixing the colors I want is a challenge. I like working with gouache, because it is opaque and it also lifts easily. You can rework it as much as you want.

Then I used Daniel Smith watercolors. I’m most familiar with watercolor. I was able to get closer to the colors and values I wanted.

Finally I worked with Faber-Castel PITT artist brush pens. I used several application techniques. I wetted the sky first with a waterbrush, scribbled some blue color on a separate piece of plastic, picked it up with the waterbrush and applied it to the paper. For the lighter colors I transferred color to the paper using a waterbrush but without wetting the paper first. For the darker colors I used the pens directly. I layered purple and green to get the darkest green.

The inkjet print looks pretty good until you compare it to the slide. Nothing beats a slide.

This is good practice for doing detail. I used a #4 round brush for all the paintings. Usually I don’t go smaller than a #6.

Working small has it’s advantages. It speeds thing up. You can try several different versions. Obviously it used less materials. You can do several paintings or drawings at once on the same piece of paper. It’s a great way to warm up, and you can think of them as thumbnails for possible larger paintings.

Willamette River

Winter in the Willamette Valley has its own stark beauty – cold and gray. I thought charcoal would be the best medium to express this scene interpreted from a personal photo.

This was a test to see how some new art materials worked together. The paper is an off-white charcoal paper with a rough texture. I tried a variety of charcoals and erasers on it, but first I made a light pencil sketch outlining the clouds, trees, and reflections. Then I started light with vine charcoal. On smooth paper I can put vine charcoal directly on the paper and blend it out evenly with a paper towel. I tried that in the sky on the left above the trees and discovered that this paper having a rough texture does not blend smoothly. The initial marks stay put. So, for the rest of the drawing I scribbled vine charcoal on a separate piece of paper, picked it up with a paper towel and then applied it to the drawing with a light circular rubbing scrub building up the clouds and their reflections in the water slowly. Next I did the trees and their reflections using vine charcoal directly on the drawing and blended with a small tortillion (a pointed paper stub). You cannot get a deep black with vine charcoal. So, I switched to using a dark charcoal pencil and for the deepest black I used water-soluble charcoal activated with a moist waterbrush. I discovered that once water-soluble charcoal dries on this paper, it does not erase. The best I could do was to lighten the tone slightly. I needed to be careful about where I added the darkest blacks.

I did this drawing in two sittings over two days. I like to start a drawing one day and finish it the next. That way I have a chance to see the drawing with a fresh eye. I often catch things that need adjusting, things that I would likely miss if I tried to finish in one go. In this case I let the darkest blacks in the water go until the next day. I wasn’t sure how dark they should be. The color reference photo had a lot less contrast. After sleeping on it, I decided to push the contrast – make the darks darker. It tells the story better of deep, cold water.

Materials: Strathmore 500 series 9×12 inch charcoal paper. Image 7.5×10.5 inches (19.7×27 cm). Vine charcoal in a homemade reed holder, Derwent Dark charcoal pencil, Art Graf water-soluble charcoal tailor shape block, small tortillion, Tombow Mono Zero eraser and Derwent #2 waterbrush.

Jim

Yachts Trees Final Print

This is a seven color hand-pulled print 6×6 inches (15.2×15.2 cm). There are 10 prints in this edition.

Some projects take a long time to complete. I worked on the first six colors over the course of several weeks last Spring. Then the project sat on the shelf for six months until I figured out how I was going to print the final black layer.

In my previous printing project (Sun Over Mountain) I figured out how to print by hand a six color print using inexpensive materials. My goal this time was to do a seven color print with texture and detail. Also, I wanted to try using stencils as well as foam plates.

I looked through my personal photo archive and decided to use a photo I took 15 years ago on the coast near Yachats, Oregon as my reference.

Yachats Trees Photo

I cropped it to a square to fit a 6×6 inch plate. My first plate was made of Peel and Stick foam stuck to foam core and sealed with Minwax Polycrylic. Here is a photo of my setup.

Light Blue Plate

Notice I’m using the same jig I made for my last project with homemade registration pins at the top. I hand printed 10 prints with this first color of light blue using Golden Open acrylic paint. I used a one inch flat brush to apply the paint to the foam, placed the paper face down over the plate, and rubbed with a spoon and my hand to transfer the paint to the paper.

I used another foam plate to do the second color, blue gray.

Blue Gray Plate

The next color, yellow, had just a few simple shapes. I decided to use a stencil cut from overhead transparency material. I aligned the transparency stencil over the face of each print using the registration pins, and applied the paint with a sponge dabber.

Yellow Stencil

Green was my next color. I used another foam plate.

Green Plate

I used another stencil to add brown.

Brown Stencil

Gray was my last color before printing black. This time I used a thin styrofoam plate.

Click to view slideshow.

At this point I stopped to think about how best to do the final black layer. I wanted it to have a fair amount of detail which would be difficult if not impossible to do using either a foam plate or a stencil. Then I got involved in other projects and put this one on hold. Six months later I bought a new Epson WF-7610 wide format printer/scanner. I wondered if I could use it to print the final black layer. I ran some tests and figured out the registration problem and decided it was worth a try. I scanned an ink drawing and placed the image file on an OpenOffice text document sized to 9×12 inches (the size of the existing prints). That way I could measure the distance from the left and top edges and place the image precisely on the page. It worked. I didn’t know until I printed one how the Epson ink would look over the existing acrylic paint. I lucked out. The ink is somewhat transparent. So, there is a nice unanticipated variation in the value depending on whether the ink is printed over the white of the paper or a color. Also, I was worried that the ink might not stick to the acrylic paint, but again I lucked out. It did. You have to be willing to try things.

Here’s an animated GIF showing the step-by-step process.

Yachats Trees GIF

And here is a shot of the edition of ten completed prints. Each one is printed on a 9×12 inch sheet of Scratch Art SUBI Block Printing Paper. As with any hand printed project, each print has some slight variation.

Seven Color Edition

For the artist, process is more important than the product, but in the end, the image is what counts. I rather like this one. It has a strong graphic appeal and yet is representational.

Jim

Sun Over Mountain – 6 Color Block Print

This little print (4×6 inches, 10×15 cm) is the culmination of two weeks research and planning and gathering of materials and tools. It is my first attempt at printing in color. It uses six plates to print six colors.

My goals for this project were to :

• find an easy and fast way to make durable plates from cheap, easily attainable materials,
• experiment with Golden Open acrylic colors instead of printing inks,
• print multiple colors by hand without using a press.

In the crafts section of Walmart I found some Peel and Stick Foam Sheets. It is sold in a pack with a variety of colors. Each sheet is 2mm thick and comes with a white backing sheet. It is easy to cut with an X-Acto knife. My plan was to use a single sheet, draw a pattern on the white backing, cut it out with an X-Acto blade, and stick each color’s pieces to a separate piece of foam core board. That’s what I did and in no time I had six finished plates – one for each color blue, yellow, gray, magenta, light green, and dark green.

Sun Over Mountain – 6 Foam Plates

I then made a jig to hold the same sized plates and used two registration pins at the top.

Sun Over Mountain – Plate Jig

I tried two papers – plain white inkjet paper and Scratch Art Subi Block Printing paper. I used two methods of applying color to the foam. I used a one inch flat brush on the blue plate and I rolled on the yellow with a brayer.

Sun Over Mountain – Blue and Yellow

The paint was easier to apply with a brush, but the roller produced a smoother color. I used the Golden Open acrylic paints without thinning. They are bright, bold colors even when mixed with white and they stay wet long enough to mix, apply, and print multiple prints. I dried each print between colors using a hair drier. These paints are transparent. Overlaying yellow on top of blue, for instance, produces green.

It was hard to see the yellow paint when I rolled it on the yellow foam. Next time I’ll use white foam so I can better judge the coverage of each color.

Registration was off even though I used registration pins. The foam was stretchy. So, it wasn’t necessarily the same shape when I stuck it to the board as when I cut it. Next time I’ll pencil in the shapes on each board before I stick down the foam. I might also use a copy of the drawing on a pin registered transparent overlay to check the placement of the colors before printing.

I like this method. It’s nice to be able to draw the image once as it will appear in the finished print without having to make a mirror image copy onto the plate. This makes it relatively fast and easy, and the plates are durable. The foam stands up to printing and washing. The paint produces bright, clean, flat color and is non-toxic and cleans up with water. I used a moistened rag to clean the plates.

Next up:  How to hand print textures and fine detail.

Jim

Nikki – Block Print

When I first moved to Oregon and lived out in the country, I got a puppy to keep me company. I called her Nikki (wild dog of the north). She was a Collie / Husky mix – a very smart, sweet dog. I used this photo of her as a reference for this linocut.

Nikki

I carved the linoleum plate a little at a time over several days. This is the first time I’ve tried carving linoleum. I found it to be somewhat easier to cut than the soft rubber because being firmer it is easier to control the blade. I warmed the plate before carving to soften it up because it is too stiff when it is cold.

Nikki Plate

The edges of the cut linoleum are sharper and cleaner than the soft rubber. It is easier to ink. So, the prints are more consistent. I did a short run edition of 6 prints on inkjet paper just to test the plate.

Nikki First Edition

Battleship gray linoleum plate, Sax Arts & Crafts black block printing ink on inkjet paper. Image is 3.5×3 inches (9×7.5 cm).

Jim

Birches Block Print

I made this print from a printing plate made out of card stock. I used scissors and an Xacto knife to cut up card stock and I then glued the pieces to another piece of card stock using Elmer’s white glue and then glued the whole thing to a thin sheet of wood. I sealed the plate by painting it with a thin coat of acrylic gloss medium. Here’s what the plate looked like before I inked it up for printing.

Birches Plate

I shaded in the raised pieces with a pencil and I used a hole punch to cut out the circles. You can see how thin the raised pieces are. I learned from my previous printing projects that you don’t need much depth to separate the inked parts from the unlinked parts. This was a test to see if the thickness of card stock would be enough to do the job, and it worked.

Here’s what my printing setup looked like:

Birches Printing Setup

Notice I masked the edges with blue painter’s tape. (The tape is blue not the painter). I didn’t mask my first print as you can see in this picture of the edition.

Birches Printed Edition

The only problem I ran into was when I cleaned up. The acrylic I used to seal the plate did not hold up to running water. Some water got in, lifted some of the paper, and warped the wood backing. Oh, well. That’s what tests are for – to work the bugs out.

This would be a good method to use with children. The materials are cheap and easy to use and are non-toxic. Clean up is with soap and water.

Card stock plate, Sax Arts & Crafts black block printing ink on inkjet paper. Image is 3.25×5.5 inches (8×13.5 cm).

Jim

Magnolia Blossoms

This is my second attempt at block printing. I carved a soft rubber plate (3.75×5.25 inches, 9.5×13 cm) mostly using the smallest V shaped Speedball cutter and an xacto knife.

Magnolia Plate

I created the image on my iPad from a reference photo that I took in my backyard. I used the ToonPaint app to alter the photo to a high contrast image and I used the Sketch Club app to clean it up and alter the composition a bit. I then streamed the image to my 3M projector and flipped the image horizontally in the projector and projected the image onto the rubber plate. I traced the projected image with a fine tip Sharpie pen.

I used a Speedball soft rubber brayer to spread out the water soluble ink on a sheet of glass. I taped the plate down to keep it from moving around. Here what my setup looked like.

Magnolia Plate Setup

I did a small series on inkjet paper.

Magnolia Blossoms First Edition

I learned a lot from this project. It takes a long time to carve. I learned that I don’t have to cut out the white spaces quite so deep. Even shallow cuts print well. I also learned how to ink the plate and how to hand rub the plate to transfer the ink to the paper. I found I got better blacks if I inked the plate in two passes instead of one and the ink transferred better if I first rubbed with a baren and then a metal spoon. It is pretty easy to cut thin white lines, but it is hard to cut away and leave thin black lines. Also, the later prints printed wider black lines. I don’t know if I was pushing down harder or rubbed longer or if the ink built up on the plate or all three.

Next I want to try other plate materials to see if they are easier and faster to cut. So much to learn. So much fun.

Jim

Almond Orchard – Print 1

I got some Speedball linocut carving tools and a couple of rubber printing plates for Christmas. I’ve never tried relief printing before. I spent about a week researching relief printing techniques and subjects. The toughest part for me was choosing a subject. I’ve been working with a full range of values and colors in watercolor and acrylics. It was hard to switch my thinking to just black and white. I looked through my collection of sketches and photographs, and picked out a few that were high contrast.  One was a picture of my father’s almond orchard.

Almond Orchard – Reference

I slept on it and woke up with an idea. In photography if you want to make a print from a positive (a slide), you make an internegative and print from the negative. I wondered if I could carve a positive and use it as a mold to make an internegative plate from moldable plastic and then print from the internegative. So, I tried it.

I had two questions. 1. Would the plastic stick to the rubber plate? and 2. Would the plastic hold and release the ink well enough to make a good relief print?

I carved a small (2×3 inch) test plate. I then heated some InstaMorph plastic and rolled it out to make a thin sheet and then rolled the sheet onto the rubber plate and refrigerated it to harden the plastic.

Almond Orchard – Plates

Above you can see my rough reference sketch and next to it is the carved rubber plate and below that is the InstaMorph plastic internegative. Here is a print from the plastic plate.

Almond Orchard – Print 2

It sort of worked. Unfortunately the plastic did stick to the original rubber plate. I had a very hard time pealing it off the rubber and in the process I tore some of the rubber off the plate. That actually turned out to be a happy accident. The picture at the top of this post is a print made from the torn rubber plate.

I used a spoon to hand print both plates. The plastic internegative plate took the impression well. It has good detail, but it did not print well. The raised areas were uneven and sharp because the depth of my carving on the rubber plate was uneven.

It’s an interesting idea. I may explore it further using different techniques and materials.

Jim