Back from Vacation

I've been away for a couple of weeks, visiting Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.  Fogo Island, off the north coast of Newfoundland, was one of our main destinations.  I will post about some of the artists, craftspeople, and inspiration I found there once I've had a chance to digest.  Meanwhile, back in the studio yesterday I encountered the familiar struggle of re-entry, so I decided to continue with the blind drawings.  It really is a great way to get something going.  Check out my previous post for links and suggestions, plus the video.  Here is the output:

This one has a depth and space that some of the others lack.  I want to pursue this today.

I am always thinking about teaching.  I get all enthusiastic about something that happens in the studio, and immediately my brain goes into Workshop Mode.  Anyone interested in doing this drawing thing as a workshop?  This is like Big Fat Art, only smaller.  "100 Drawings" in a six-week online class.  What do you think?

While on vacation, I found a few spaces that would be ideal for workshops.  One in La Have, Nova Scotia, one in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and one on Fogo Island in Newfoundland. 

Newfoundland, with Fogo Island circled.

La Have is on the South Shore; Wolfville is a university town on the Bay of Fundy.

Paint-Collage-Line

Thanks for all your comments on my Gallery 47 show! I will post a how-to on the wood panels as soon as I get my next order from Dick Blick. Meanwhile, I wanted to show you some recent sketchbook output. I was looking at a few images of Kurt Nimmo, one of my favorites on Flickr. Inspired by the spareness of his work, I decided to play with the idea of paint-collage-line. Each piece has at least one paint application (and not much more), one piece of collage, and a linear element. These are made in the spirit of the JOY of creating!

I used a brayer to apply Baltic Green (Liquitex), then spritzed and blotted it, first letting the water drip down the page a bit. The collage is a bit of mono-print; and the line is a blind scribble.

More Baltic Green, plus quinacridone gold (Golden Fluid Acrylics) and some gray. Mono-print collage, and graphite scribble.

The paints here are Van Dyke Brown and Quinacridone Burnt Orange with a tad of Quinacridone Gold, all Golden Fluid Acrylics. The collage is a piece of a paperback cover, and the line is graphite. Plus a little sgraffito in the paint.

Quin Gold, Van Dyke Brown, a piece of book cover, and a line done in pen.

And for the last one I decided just to play with paint.

More Blind Scribble

Thanks for all your comments of my blind scribble drawing practice that I posted on Friday. I thought I'd share a few painting-collage-drawings that I did based on this practice. I began each in this series with a newspaper collage background, just to add some text and texture.

In this one, I followed the newspaper collage with a blind scribble in black oil pastel, then another one in a terracotta oil pastel. I painted with acrylics, being guided by the structure imposed by the collage and the scribbles. I stamped the Q's, and then went over the scribbles to give them more visual weight.


In this one I painted acrylics over the newspaper collage, and then did the blind scribble with a water-soluble graphite pencil. Next came the white crayon scribble, not blind, and watercolor in sepia and pthalo blue. I emphasized the pencil scribble with black oil pastel, then added the red in acrylic. I love that red!


Here is a page in my sketchbook in which I did two half-blind drawings of crows in water-soluble graphite pencil. By "half-blind" I mean I was looking at a picture of a crow, not at my paper, and then towards the end of the drawing I did look at my paper so that I could make a closed shape. Sort of like cheating just at the end. But this process does result in really interesting shapes!


To use these crows in a collage-painting, I first traced them both onto white Art Tissue paper (not wrapping tissue, which has a shiny side) in fine point Micron pen. Then I cut them out, roughly, and applied them to this collage-painting, PEN SIDE DOWN, using acrylic matte medium. This is an adaptation of a technique I learned from Jane LaFazio. The tissue paper practically disappears so that you are left with the drawing layered onto the collage.


Trying to incorporate drawing into my collage-paintings is an ongoing process, and doing these series of studies in my sketchbook or on small sheets of paper is immensely helpful. Thanks for visiting!

PS: I decided to change my picture in my Profile. This one is more realistic, and more recent.