Crayons!

Lorraine Bell's new book, The Art of the Crayon, has just been released, an my art is on the cover!  I'm so excited about this.  I don't have my copy yet (should be here any day), but I am quite looking forward to seeing what other artists do with crayons.  You can check out Lorraine's blog post about it, and see who else contributed to the book.  Looks like I am in good company.

You can see previous posts I have done, including video, on using crayons and oil pastels here and here.  I am teaching a one-day workshop at Art and Soul called Beyond Crayons: Mark-Making at its Finest" in April, 2017.  It is full, but you can get on the wait list, or just show up and beg Glenny, the Queen, for a spot in the class, if you like.  Or just take out your crayons, get Lorraine's book, and GO!

My favorite crayons are Caran d'Ache Neocolor II.  They are pigment-rich, and are a little more friendly with acrylic paints than oil pastels are.  If working in oil media, no acrylic, I love using Sennelier oil pastels for their buttery quality, and Holbein's for a stiffer consistency but with the same pigment density.  The Caran d'Ache Neopastels are great too.  I think the Cray Pas and other very inexpensive oil pastels are like the Crayola of the oil pastel world.  The professional quality oil pastels and crayons are well worth the money.  Just my opinion.

I am, as of recently, exploring R&F Paints' Pigment Sticks, which are like oil paint in stick form.  I want to make crayon-like marks, but on a larger scale, and investigating ways to do that.  These pigment sticks are GORGEOUS!!!  Unlike oil pastels, pigment sticks DO dry, over time, so they can be used like oil paint, and combined with oil paint mediums like cold wax and "Galkyd" or other alkyd resins.

Hope you enjoy a visit to Lorraine's blog, and to the web sites of the other contributors to her new book.  Thanks for the visit here!

Lisa Pressman Workshop at R&F Paint

I just got back from a workshop with Lisa Pressman at R&F Paints, called "Exploring Visual Language: Conversations on Color".  How cool is THAT?  We were working with pigment sticks, which are very rich oil paint in stick form.  Lisa is awesome, the studio is awesome, and the other students were awesome.  Could not have been a more inspiring workshop. Here are a few pix:

Lisa demonstrating on multiple pieces with multiple materials

One of my 10"x10" panels, still wet, still in progress

Ditto the above

And another one....

one of my studies on paper, 7"x7"

Another study on paper, using neutrals this time

The R&F Pigment Sticks are absolutely LUSCIOUS!

10"x10" panel, study using printmaking techniques - masking and brayering

This is most of the class - a couple people left early.  That's me in the magenta sweatshirt.  Lisa is second from the right.  Richard Frumess, the founder of R&F, is on the far left.  Well, he's the only guy, so I guess that's obvious.

Another study on paper

Ditto the above...

The Wall of Paint: pigment sticks on the left, encaustic paints on the right.

Notes from the Studio

Just wanted to share with you what's going on in my studio this week.  First, this morning for some unknown reason I wanted to work in oil media:  oil sticks, pigment sticks, oil pastels and oil paint.  So I painted on some drawings I'd made yesterday.  Here are two of the drawings:

Drawing #1; 20"x20", acrylic, charcoal, graphite on paper

Drawing #3; 20"x20", acrylic, charcoal, graphite on paper

There were four of these, and I kept #1, but painted over #2, #3, and #4 using oils.  Here are the results so far.  THESE ARE STILL IN PROCESS, so if you post them somewhere, please indicate that.

Oil #1, 20"x20"

Oil #2, 20"x20"

Oil #3, 20"x20"

I am using an alkyd resin medium with the the paints and over the oil pastels (makes it dry faster), and mostly using my fingers to apply the paint.  I've been looking at some colorful work on Pinterest, in particular recently Madeline Denaro, Wendy McWilliams, Charlotte Foust, and others.  I'd been getting very scribbly and linear, and using neutrals, so I'm looking maybe to bring in some shapes and patterns?  I don't know.  This is just a baby step beginning.

On the 3'x3' front, I will show you several stages of the painting I put in a recent post:

This is where it was in my Working Large post.

Here is is somewhat transformed.

And here I totally obscured the India ink portion.

This is a detail shot of the piece at this point.

 This, of course, is still in process.  I've done a little more to the red area, but it has a ways to go. 

Here are links to some of the materials I used:
Holbein Oil Pastels
Sennelier Oil Pastels
Caran d'Ache Neopastels
R&F Pigment Sticks
Gamblin Oil Paints
Alkyd Resin Gel (Gamblin's brand is called "Galkyd")

Some of the above links are to the manufacturers; some are to Blick Art Materials.  All of the above are available at Blick Art Materials, and many other art supply retailers.

My work table this morning.