Mixed media textured gesso...on wood :-)

More Year of the Spark class work - this lesson is from Carla.  And I recorded a couple of in-process steps this time.

Phase 1 - sketch on wood and gesso ("texturized"... is that a word?):

The beginning of many layers...

Phase 2 - color

Watercolor

Final - massaged the background with Carla's "rub and buff" technique and added details:

Details in graphite, ink, conte crayon and charcoal.

And Carla always begins each lesson with a warm-up exercise.  This time it was one-liner drawing of the same face:

Inked.

Class is out...

Diane Culhane's online workshop, “Paint Your Garden” that is.  Currently I am working on some assignments that I made up for myself and I will share them upon completion :-)

However, to catch up on what has been going on… I have been working toward my goal of freer expression in this medium, and I have been having fun taking chances, letting go and enjoying the characteristics of the paint. 

One of last week’s assignments was a continuation of creating mostly visual texture by way of frottage, blown blots and splattering - fun and messy.  The different techniques Diane has been teaching build on themselves; the layering, the techniques of masking and sgraffito (love sgraffito) combine with the newer ones and, voilà, a menu of texturing options.

Here are the vignettes:

Masking is key.

The triangles at the bottom appeal to me...

 

A fav -  because of the semi-opaque layers and the dots (!)

This one is different.  I sort of followed the paint.

I love it when I can hardly wait to get into my studio and begin :-)

Last of the wolves

I recently completed the final illustration for this month's Year of the Fairy Tale.  The main subject is a wolf.  I think I focused on the wolf because it is similar to the dog and I love to draw them.  Hmmm, I guess I didn't stray as far from my comfort zone as I first thought...

So here is the last of the wolves:

Danger, danger.

I used oil pastels and graphite over acrylic paint.  I masked off the different elements and then used lots of layering and smudging - messy, messy but Fun :-)