Nautilus

 Mixed Media

21 x 15"

Strathmore Smooth Bristol Board

This is a piece I recently completed with the hopes of gaining more experience with colored pencils.  This is a new medium for me even though I purchased Faber-Castell Polychromos some time ago and added Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils for this project, I have completed only one other piece and used a very limited palette.  I really wanted to practice layering and shading and include other mediums in the mix.

Because this was more about color application and I didn't want to think about design, I dowloaded one of Ben Kwok's wonderful templates from the Facebook Ornation Creation group page and enlarged it at a local print shop.  The image itself measures 15 x 11".  I found out this was quite a bit of real estate to cover, this took about 45 hours to complete!

 Detail of center.

Detail of Golden Interference Orange Fluid Acrylic Paint

The interference paint in some areas really made things pop.  From one angle the paint appears orange and from the opposite angle it appears teal.  The little ovals all around the edge and the swirl in the center were painted with Golden Iridescent Copper Light. This photo also shows the need for mastering the waxy bloom of layering colored pencils.  Even with the use of Gamsol between some of the layers, my heavier dark color application at the end produced bloom.  Gotta work on that!

Speaking of layers,the following shots show the progression of color application which began with a light wash of Daniel Smith Hansa Yellow Light watercolor and then worked up from there with the Caran d'Ache Luminence colored pencils.

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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!

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Zendala Dare #88

Zendala Dare #88

This is my first completed Zendala Dare; template is available through The Bright Owl.  The templates are outline zendalas ready to download, print and tangle.  I think the most amazing thing about this process is the zendala you start with sometimes ends barely resembling the original.  And the tangles create the magic with color placement.  

If you compare the original template #88 from The Bright Owl, you can see the dramatic difference just in the addition of three tangle patterns with the picture below.

There are only three tangle patterns used here; Paradox, Girders (used in the center) and a fan type fill I used at the top of each segment. Paradox is available here on YouTube.  Paradox provides many varied and interesting results based on the shape you start with.  If this statement sounds confusing, watch the video and it will become more clear.  I started thinking I was going to apply color in a certain way and when I set the piece down and then walked by it later, the sections popped out at me in a completely different way.  So that's what I went with.

After printing the zendala outline on an ink jet printer, I used Canson semi-transparent marker paper as an overlay and traced the zendala in non-photo blue pencil.  After all of the tangle patterns were added I photo copied the piece onto Xpress It Cardstock (specifically made for Copics) and added my color.  I also applied the same color technique to the Canson which works very nicely and saves a photocopy step.  Both papers are great with inks.  

Color was applied with Copic markers:  R22, R24, R29, BG10, BG13, BG25, V12, V15, V17, YR21, YR23, YR24 with warm grays in W1, W3, W5 and W7.

Tangles patterns drawn with a Micron .01 pen.

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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!

Tangled Peacock Moth

Tangled Peacock Moth

Tangling and Copics, that's been so much of what I've been doing lately.  All I can say is it's so much fun to see things take shape and I just want to start another!

Ben Kwok posts such beautiful blue line templates on Facebook that adding the interior design with tangle patterns and then color application with Copic alcohol markers provides so many creative avenues.  So here is the moth template with a few design changes of my own.  I continue to want to give a peacock feel to everything, I hope the moth doesn't mind the cross breeding!  I'm still experimenting; I've used the micron pens in 01, Copic alcohol markers, graphite pencil and a glitter brush on Xpress It card stock.  That's about it.  I need to take a break and get back to my watercolors soon.  Well, maybe one more tangled template.......