What next?

I am still playing around with textures and colors but this will be my last piece of this size and I hope to start a bigger size with a little more serious work on it. This is another recycled piece. It started with a still life over gold leaf but I ruined it by adding some burlap to it. After taking the burlap off the only solution left, was the wall texturizer to cover with. I had covered it weeks ago and now that I decide to brush some paint over it I found those scratchy indentations but don't find them disturbing so I will leave them.

I was discussing intuitive abstract art with another abstract artist. It is so hard for me to reason with abstracts because then I freeze and connot produce anything. I know a lot of people abtract from reality but it is something I cannot do.
Technorati Tags:gold leaf, abstract, intuition

Earth Again!

I have been quite absent from my blog this week but I just got back from a trip to McAllen, Texas. My husband bought me a very, far in advance, birthday present but we probably won't get up there again before the end of the year. He bought me a Nikon D50 Digital Camera. The shutter speed is so much faster than the Canon Power-Shot I have. Hope this will improve the quality of the pictures I take of my paintings. I haven't been able to do much painting either since my two grandsons are visiting from Sonora. Although, I did get a quick experimental painting in this afternoon and hope to get some larger one's done this week.

Technorati Tags: Texas, Camera, Nikon, Sonora

Two of Three

This is the second painting working in the same way I did the previous one of my pour series. I feel that these are too dark but I had to continue with the color palette since I plan to group these. I will have to find a way for the ink to keep it's original bright color. After these three I wiil try with a lighter background and hope the ink reacts differently. The top image is a close up fragment.

Close up of pour 1

closeup pour 1, originally uploaded by marianuch.

Group of three

Pour 1, originally uploaded by marianuch.

The pervious pour paintings I have posted are still not what I wanted them to be so I am still trying and covering up. I think this one is a little closer to what I want although I would like the brighter color to be more intense. This would be the ink in this one and I feel that it breaks down as it combines with the acrylic. This looks much better in real life because the there is so much going on in it that is not visible on the screen and there is an iridescent glow to it. It is acrylic, acylic ink and pigmented sand on MDF board. My idea is to group three of these in one paintng but with a box frame for each that will only hold the paintings but no decorate them.
Technorati tags:paintings, ink, sand, MDF

The Weekly Drawing thread

for flicker, originally uploaded by marianuch.

The Weekly Drawing Thread

Three years ago I came across Wet Canvas. I began to hang around the Mixed Media forum but my desire to learn to draw took me to the Drawing and Sketching forum. There I came across the Weekly Drawing Thread hosted by Stoy Jones at that time. I don'y know if he was the creator of the thread. I was very afraid to post my first drawing but with the excellent critique and kindness of Stoy Jones, Dee, JayD, alfredart, mcbecket and others, I soon felt welcome in the thread. I don't always have time to do the weekly drawing but it is something I am always looking forward too every Sunday evening. I believe it is an excellent way to keep the drawing practice, active.

This is this weeks drawing.

Technorati tags: drawing, sketching, critique

Mango again!

Mango again!, originally uploaded by marianuch.

I think this will enter as another post because I am posting the image from Flicker since I am still having trouble with the image uploader.

Mango again!

Today has been another one of those frustrating days where you think you have a fabulous idea, you work on it for hours, think it is finished, take a picture of it, put it up on your screen and you find that is is a total disaster. I had the brilliant idea of using my leaf and acorn drawing to collage into a geometric abstract but chose the wrong color and also realized that geometric forms are not my thing. I have painted around it in black and poured a gold and ochre oil pour over it. I hope that by morning it will dry and be decent enough for me to post.

That said I will post Mango again after having a stressful business meeting.

Technorati tage:geometric,leaf, cat

Pour Series II

I haven't been able to post anything for my blog because the image uploader has not wanted to work for me. I will try again and see if I'm lucky this time.

Now it seems the page is not found so it might be the blogger and not specifically my blog.

Pour Series

I started a series yesterday titled earth series, due to the first that made me think of this but after finishing this one it really doesn't look like earth, it looks more like sky so I will just call it, Pour Series. I am a little disappointed because it doesn't like it looked before it dried and I think the secret is to let the top pour dry a little before adding the squirt of ink. The red you see in this is red acrylic ink and when I squirted it into the wet pour it was fascinating to see how the threads of red ink spread out like veins of color through the blue and black pour. I am posting two of these. In the first one I added tissue paper for texture but I believe they look better without the texture, except for the granules of sand I sprinkle in, before it dries. They are both acrylic, acrylic ink and pigmented sand on masonite board, 16X16. My intention was to group these as one whole piece, now it depends on what the outcome will be of the two remaining surfaces I have to work with.
Technorati Tags: earth, ink, masonite, red

Amate Paper

I used this paper to draw the Weekly Drawing Thread, drawing at Wet Canvas but found out quickly it is not the best paper for graphite. I know people use it for pastels and it could have looked better with the colored Derwent Drawing pencils because of the natural tone the Amate paper has. It does not show up much in the photograph.

"This bark paper is boiled and soaked over night until soft enough for the fibers to pull apart. It is then pounded using a rectangular rock with finger grooves until the pulp is evenly spread out in the shape the paper-maker wants.

The sound of people pounding pulp into paper can be heard echoing off the hills around the town of San Pablito in the Sierra Norte in Puebla.

The color and grain of the paper depends on the bark used to make it. The typical coffee color comes from the Jonote tree (ficus family), white from the Xalama Limón, and the silvery beige color from the Mora (mulberry family), to name just a few varieties. Years of practice let the Otomí artisans make different sizes and thicknesses - from poster-board to crepe-paper weight.

The paper is dried in the sun on the same boards where it is pounded and shaped."

More at this link......http://home.earthlink.net/~kering/amate.html

Tchnorati Tags: Amate, paper, Otomi, Jonote+tree

Recycled Mixed Media

This was another Fossil painting but I made the grave mistake of putting varnish on it and had not seen some granules of orange pigment on it. As I applied the varnish I streaked the whole painting with orange pigment so I had to cover it with wall texture and start again with something else. I am not completely happy with this one either but having nothing else to post tonight I will use this one and see if it grows on me or I dislike it more as the days go by.

The Power Behind Us
People That Support Us
Behind each of us stands at least one supporter. This was once thought to be the spouse who ran the home while leaving the other spouse free to work. While this is still one valid scenario, most of us will find that we have other kinds of supporters in our lives. In some cases, our supporters are the people whose help allows us to do the things we're best at, see to our obligations, or pursue or dreams. In other cases, our support may come from the people who are there to help us through life's challenges by offering us their strength and bolstering our spirit.

Our support may come from our families and friends or from the people we hire-nannies, assistants, gardeners, healers, therapists, and advisors. Our supporters may be the mentors who help us express ourselves by listening to us as we share our thoughts and feelings. Our supporter can be the person sitting next to us at a networking meeting or the teacher from our childhood whose words still resonate in our minds. We have always had supporters around us whether we noticed them or not. No matter where the support comes from, few of us can make it through life without assistance.

As we take the time to acknowledge everyone that has every supported us, we can't help but feel grateful. Understanding our place in our human support system helps us see that just as there are people that support us, we are a supporter to many people. By gratefully accepting the expertise and assistance of our supporters, we can consciously and more easily build a life that we love. Thanks to our staff, groups, friends, and loved ones for all their support. We all need each other's support to thrive this world. From DailyOM
Techorati Tags: texture, pigment, healers, painting

Mayan Series II

There are days when I just can't seem to focus on what it is I really want to do and find it so difficult to face a blank canvas. I would really like to try abstracts with a brush and tissue paper like I have done in the past but I get inspired with something else and jump around from one thing to another. I felt that the pour in this painting needed a little more than just the pour. I worked on it trying to get some depth but being used to oil and this being acrylic, I found it hard to follow the original shapes, of the pour. I drew in the Mayan design with a quill pen that I found much easier to control than any other type of pen but still there is something missing or maybe, these are just not my colors.

Patricio

I haven't quite finished this drawing with the three pencils. I seem to have a lot of trouble getting the tone even and it looks a little scratchy. The position of his head is not the way I would have liked this picture but I loved the expression when I took it. It is so true of him when he is cooking up something in his head and the dimples form around his mouth

Mixed Media Still Life

"Artistic illumination are found in unlikely places because these areas have the potential to turn heads, medicine the soul, and infuse perception with a new vantage point on life. Implausible sources are vivid reminders that the process of creative expression will forever amaze and do it's best work where we least expect results." Shaun McNiff

Mayan Series

The above is a fragment of the same painting showing a little of the drawing of the mayan ritual.



While letting my third painting for the Fossil series dry, I decided to try another acrylic and ink pour because they are so much faster and dry quickly. After I had managed to sort of control my pours and let them dry, I thought I would try to incorporate some Mayan figures to the whole piece. This I thought of a little too late because I had already brushed on an acrylic sealer. Neverhteless, I tried to draw in some figures from one of the famous paintings in the Mayan Site Chichen Itza. The real painting is depicting The Battle of Jaguars which was a ritual in that culture. Unofrtunately my drawing of part of this painting does not show up. next time I think I will draw in the my theme first and then pour over. Since I had thought of this after the pour was down, the colors are definitely not the Mayan colors. I will try the next one with the colors the mayans were so well noted for.

Technorati Tags: Fossil,Maya,ChichenItza,ritual

Boots

My drawing for the Weekly Drawing Thread at Wet Canvas.

It has not been an easy day today art-wise. I started off today with the same excitement I had, had since last evening cooking up an idea for a new abstract. While gathering my materials I came across a canvas panel that had been gessoed, painted and covered up with some amate paper; painted again and that was what I was looking at when I thought, "perfect, just the size and format I need". To pour with acrylic you need an absorbent substrate in order for the paint to seep in and I completely disregarded the fact. Orange, Violet and a shot of black ink over an underpainting of blue gouache. Gorgeous orange threads, streaming through the puddle but stopping nowhere, until what had been an explosion of color turned into an empty grey smeared panel. These are the mishaps with pouring and mixed media, but inspite of these setbacks I love it, and the great advantage is that you can cover up and start again.

Three Pencil Potrait

"We often feel that we don't have the time or energy to extend ourselves to others with the small gestures that compose what we call common courtesy. It sometimes seems that this kind of social awareness belongs to the past, to smaller towns and slower times. Yet, when someone extends this kind of courtesy to us, we always feel touched. Someone who lends a helping hand when we are struggling with our groceries makes an impression because many people just walk right by. Even someone who simply makes the effort to look us in the eye, smile, and greet us properly when entering a room stands out of the crowd. It seems these people carry with them the elegance and grace of another time, and we are always thankful for our contact with them. Common courtesy is a small gesture that makes a big difference."
DailyOM

This portrait still needs tweaking and layering but I had nothing to post at the moment so I'll post this before it is finished. My second assignment from the class "Portriats in Three Part - Harmony"

Energy

I did this painting last night but am not quite sure if it is finished. I have had the suggestion of adding some geometric forms so, I will have to ponder on that.

"The violently colored, near-surrealistic paintings Kandinsky executed.....incorparate unspecifically "biomorphic" imagery suggestive of the physical world...He utterly renounced pictorial representation in favor of "anti-logical" abstraction, convinced by his encounter with the composer Shoenberg, that his art could somehow, like music, be thereby liberated from the realm of the material"- Terry Teachout, author from the book Abstract Painting by Vicky Perry