NATALIE'S GOLDFINCH

NATALIE'S GOLDFINCH
14 X 17"  On Bristol Vellum
Colored Pencil , Ink , Graphite & Gold Leaf

This piece was a request from my daughter for my grand-daughter's birthday in May.  It was also my first experiment on Bristol vellum with colored pencils.  I love working with the Faber Castell Polychromos, layer upon layer of shading and texture.  It's a workout on the hands though!  Micron pens .05 and .01 were used on the ribbon.  The ribbon was a challenge, I actually had about eight hours into this piece before I put it aside and started over from scratch.  The ribbon was just not working and there are a few things I learned in the process that I will put into practice when I include a tangled ribbon in future projects. Helen Williams' e-book available on her blog A Little Lime, was a tremendous help.

All shading outside of the ribbon, "N" and goldfinch was done with 2B, 6B and 8B graphite pencils and a paper stub. One thing I'd like to pass on and which was new to me; when using a blending stub it's good to sand the end frequently so the colored pencil doesn't build up on the end of the stub making blending of the graphite far more difficult.  I couldn't help touching the edge of the colored pencil area as I was adding my shadows and noticed problems as I tried to blend the graphite.

Lastly, I just had to add some gold leaf in a few spots and was very happy with the outcome.  Another word of caution about the gold leaf sizing on paper.  Give it plenty of time to dry!  If you smear it outside of the desired area you get to spend some really anxious moments gently removing it from the paper with an Xacto knife!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ikea Kitchen Carts for Your Studio

Ikea Kitchen Carts for Your Studio

The Raskog Kitchen Carts available at Ikea are fantastic movable storage for your work area or studio.  I've been asked about these so many times, most recently on Facebook, that I thought I would show everyone how I use them and how fantastic they are.

The photos below are close to a year old and since then I've added a wooden table (and lots of other stuff) to my studio, replacing the Costco folding table I worked on for years.  The carts work great alongside both setups.

This is a photo of the "dry" work area of the studio and the floor is carpeted.  The carts roll around with no problem, even fully loaded.

The hanging containers really serve to expand the storage of these carts and can actually be hung on all four sides and all three levels.  Here's a link to one of the styles I also found at Ikea in the kitchen gadget area. They are so inexpensive you can really go wild!

I live in a small coastal town on the Oregon coast and its a two hour drive to Portland and the nearest Ikea.  So a friend of mine and I took orders from our friends and did a road trip to Ikea one Saturday last winter. We came back with a car full of carts!

Thankfully all of this is available online but we figured our fuel and lunch would cost less than the shipping!

Since establishing a "wet" area in my studio, I've moved one of the carts beside the easel so it now holds only paints, brushes and mediums.  I'm thinking I need a third cart to fill the space I moved this one from.  Yes?

Thanks for stopping by, if you have any questions, leave a comment below.

Hugs!