More Big Fat Art and a few more Verticals

Just thought I would show you a few things that I'm working on now.  As you can see, I've limited the color and vocabulary, and seem to be working out a few ideas over the course of lots and lots of pieces. This is just a sampling.  These are all either 18"x24" or 19.5"x25.5". 

The 18"x24" are on my all-purpose Cheap Drawing Paper, and the slightly larger ones are on Canson drawing paper, which I've just discovered.  It holds up to a lot, but is still pretty light weight.  For the "keepers", I coat the back with matte medium.  Then the paper lies a bit flatter.  For paint, I am using Blick Matte Acrylics for black, white, and neutrals, and bits of Golden Fluid Acrylics for some colors. 

Here are a few more of the vertical pieces, all of which are 7"x22" on printmaking paper:

Drawing materials on all of the above include Pitt pens, Caran d'Ache NeoColor II crayons, and a few graphite sticks and pencils.  Nothing too fancy. 

My online classes Unlocking the Secrets of Color and Exploring the Self-Portrait are both beginning next week, and are filling up fast.  I'll open the blogs later today so people can start posting their introductions.  I love this part of online workshops!  My Extreme Composition class got so much enthusiasm that we've begun Extreme Composition 2, open only to those who took the first class.  It is more like a group discussion forum where everyone sets her own goals and everyone supports each other.  It is off to a fabulous start!  Extreme Composition will be offered again starting in April.

Exploring the Self-Portrait

Happy New Year!  On January 9, we are beginning my online workshop, "Exploring the Self-Portrait".  This is really an exploration of drawing, painting, and collage techniques using the self-portrait as the subject.  With the tools you'll gain from this workshop, you can approach any subject for artistic expression with confidence and flexibility.  We draw over a photograph, spill ink, make colorful random collage, make blind contour drawings, create wet-in-wet watercolors, and get into a whole lot more trouble.  If you want to sharpen and expand your drawing skills for 2013, consider joining us in Exploring the Self-Portrait!

Student work and my examples from Exploring the Self-Portrait

Exploring the Self-Portrait, starting June 6

It's time for another round of Exploring the Self-Portrait, my online workshop for the self-portrait-terrified.   We had a blast with it in January, and the participants made fabulous work.  Here is a little sampling of what we will be doing:
To see the full description of Exploring the Self-Portrait click here.

I used self-portraits in my sketchbook for this encaustic collage.

Encaustics Workshop with Daniella Woolf

I am just back from a five-day encaustics workshop.  What an experience!  If you do not know what encaustics is, go here or here.  The workshop was given by Daniella Woolf through North Country Studio Workshops at Bennington College.  Unbelievable group - the students AND the teacher were all accomplished artists with a lot of inspiration to offer.

One very cool thing with encaustic is doing collage on paper.  We did a group collage in which every student made one horizontal collage piece, and then we assembled them as a hanging scroll. Here is Daniella Woolf and Wen Redmond (do check her out!!) assembling the scroll:

 And the finished scroll hanging in the window overlooking the back field.


Here is the first stage of a self-portrait I did, as I am in the midst of my online class "Exploring the Self-Portrait".  I drew directly onto the wax (encaustic medium over paper laminated to a plywood panel) with china marker:

 I was not too thrilled with the mouth, so after scraping it off, I applied a coat of white encaustic paint mixed with a lot of medium over the whole thing.  then I cut out another mouth from one of my sketchbook drawings, and applied it with medium.  I added a few more details in graphite, and built up color and a bit of collage on either side of the face.

Here are a couple other photos from the workshop:

Another 8"x8" panel, "Ink and O's"

This untitled piece is on a panel coated with plaster.




This piece has many layers of wax as well as encaustic collage:

"Shino"
Shino is a kind of traditional Japanese ceramic glaze, some beautiful examples of which I found here.  The Alizarin Orange coming through the white wax reminded me of this glaze:





"Cruciform with Rust"


"Red Square 2"




"Red Square 1"



My work space

R&F Paints provided a vast array of encaustic paints and medium.

  I am so grateful to North Country Studio Workshops for granting me a scholarship to take this fabulous, life-changing workshop!!  I know it will enrich my work, and I hope it will enrich my teaching.  I am also grateful to Daniella Woolf for being so generous with her knowledge and resources.  She has two fabulous instructional DVD's available, which you can purchase here.

Fabulous Work from Students

As you may know, I am teaching my online class "Exploring the Self-Portrait" now, and I'm thrilled with some of the work the students are doing! We've got a really talented and lively group, so I wanted to share some of the images.

We've worked with ink on the end of a pipe cleaner:

Drawing and collage:

Drawing, painting and collage:

One-liner drawings:

Watercolor wet in wet:
In our sketchbooks:

And we are not half done yet! Every morning I wake up looking forward to seeing the new posts and comments. This was not meant to be an Inner Self kind of workshop, but inevitably one makes self-discoveries when doing self-portraits. I will be offering this online workshop again starting June 6. Meanwhile, enjoy the eye candy, and try a few self-portraits just for fun!

I am also offering The Sketchbook Practice Workshop online, starting April 4. More about that in another post.

More Self-Portrait Experiments

Here are a couple of experimental pieces I did in my sketchbook using the blind self-portrait one-liner drawings I did a couple of weeks ago.

One thing I love doing in my sketchbook is to put down at least two different things that will be a challenge to reconcile. On the page below I cut out and glued one of my blind self portraits. I knew I wanted to work on heavier paper, which is why I did not work on the original drawing, done in a light weight sketchbook. After applying some washes of color, I collaged some found and altered images as well as found text down in the lower left.


Now what? Well, I don't know. That's part of the fun. I looked back at my sketchbook and found this:
...which inspired the heavy black oil pastel lines, and also the color scheme.

In the piece below, I was just playing with my water soluble colored pencils. This is a new material for me, and I'm not yet comfortable with it. So why not just play with it in my sketchbook?

I do look as if I've been in a brawl, but it was fun trying to create a more spare image using the colored pencils than I usually do with paint and collage, and to try out new colors.

Exploring the Self-Portrait, my newest online course, begins January 2.

I'm offering Unlocking the Secrets of Color again, beginning January 4.

Get the new year off to a creative start!

One-Liner Blind Self-Portraits

You just can't make this stuff up! I did these with fine-point marker in my sketchbook, looking in the mirror, NOT at the paper, and did not lift the pen off the paper (or hardly at all).

I love the unpredictability of these, how each one is unique. I wonder what happens if you do ten blind self-portraits in a row in one sitting? Or blind self-portraits and then self-portraits looking at your paper, or the other way around. What does that do to your hand-eye coordination?


What happens if you begin at the hairline, or at the nose, or the ear?For this one I switched hands. I guess I'm more comfortable drawing left-handed, and this one is with my right:
I decided to try one that is not a one-liner, and my right cheek ended up in left field:Stay tuned and I will post the follow-up. We'll be doing plenty of blind self-portraits in my online workshop: Exploring the Self-Portrait.

Self-Portrait Experiments

For the first lesson in my online Self-Portraits workshop we'll be starting with a photograph and tracing around it. Simple enough, right? I started by taking a few photos of myself using the automatic delay thing on the camera. Then I made them into black and whites in Photoshop, though you could use color photos. For the first two I printed them out light so that the drawing would be emphasized.
Nice how you can draw lines selectively and end up looking twenty years younger!

On this one I printed the photo out without making it lighter. I drew over it and then painted it in black and white, emphasizing my gray hair:

OK, so I look like I'm choking, but it's fun anyway.

Today I added paint, mostly with a brayer.

I used my "spritz and blot" technique (contained in this video) to make the water droplets.

After you get comfortable drawing your face over a photograph, it is much easier to tackle the self-portrait on a blank sheet of paper. And there are all kinds of fun things you can do with your altered photos of yourself!!!

New Online Class - The Self-Portrait

Thank you so much for your encouraging comments! I am officially offering the self-portrait course online now, starting January 2. Some of you may want to use it as a guide to doing a self-portrait-a-day, though that is not required in the class. In each lesson we will do warm-up self-portraits using various drawing implements, and then move onto the main project.

Blind Self-Portrait using white crayon and watercolor

The main projects focus on experimentation with materials and techniques rather than the finished outcome, and my hope is that this will take the intimidation factor out of the self-portrait. Meanwhile, along the way you will draw so many self-portraits you can't help but gain the skill of making a realistic one if that is what you wish. Read the full description here, and e-mail me with any questions.

Thoughts on Self-Portraits

Several of the participants in my Text and Image Online Workshop expressed interest in doing self-portraits as an ongoing practice. So, of course, with my vast experience of doing self-portraits I thought I might host/teach an online class exploring this practice. Here are a few that showed up in our Text and Image blog:

Self-Portrait at Russian New Year

Self-Portrait after my "Branching Out"

Blind Self-Portraits in White Crayon and Watercolor

Mirror Mirror

So, I am wondering if any of you would be interested in this class? No commitments, just some feedback would be really great. I'd like to explore self-portraits in contour drawings, blind contours, paint, color, collage, fantasy, creating collage/paint environments around yourself, layering one portrait over another, cutting up portraits and putting them back together again, and generally using the self-portrait as an anchor for exploring the expressive potential of drawing, painting, and collage.