Art Class Notes, Class 3

Hello. This class was a bit challenging for me. Even leading up to this class was a bit challenging.

Why? Good question, one I'd have to think about, but revolves a bit around the issues of doing artwork, expressing creativity, and feeling a bit insecure about that.

Why insecure? Another good question. Probably because we were supposed to bring in some stuff to use to create a collage with and #1 I'm wasn't really sure what type of theme or collage I wanted to make and #2 I wasn't really sure actually how to put together these separate elements we've been learning about into an actual piece of work.

So, resulting insecurity.

We all worked separately on our work which added a bit of confusion to me. I'm going to sort out some of what we did today, and share what I learned in the process...yup, process. I'm sticking right in my original assessment that it was going to have to be about that for me, which today was a Prime Example Of. lol

ok...a few notes.

• If you have parts of the gesso lift image that you don't want in your painting then just use a bit of sandpaper. It sands it right out!


• Here's a new transparency method: Take your photocopied or magazine image and put it on a piece of clear contact paper. Brayer it on the back good and thorough. Let it soak for a while in warm to hot water, then rub the paper off the back. There you go, easy peasy!


• Let's talk Isolation Coat. An isolation coat is a great sealer for the different layers of your work. For example, after doing a gesso lift use polymer medium and paint it over the image so that the paint and other things you do to the painting don't make the lifted image keep coming up due to moisture, etc. It seals it in there for you. Isolation coats can be used for other things, but, hey...I don't know what for yet. I mean, I know by reading my paper, but don't really know.


• We learned a bit of a blending technique today, too. Mostly it seems that the keys to blending are a light touch and cleaning your brush well. Lay in two colors side by side, the two colors you want to blend. The use your glazing liquid to brush a nice strip down the middle of the two. Now, go back and lightly feather your brush between the two colors, cleaning the brush frequently and going ever so lightly. This is the technique as I saw it and understand it, lol. Haven't perfected this one yet.


• Use A nice heavy gel medium for sticking all sorts of collage type stuff into the painting. Just lay in a bit of gel medium in the painting, brush it on the back of whatever you want to add, I used buttons (what else) and flattened dried leaves (again, predictable).
  
• Ok, remember the transparency I made using the soft gel in class 2? Well, I used that same soft gel to get that transparency into my painting. Lay the medium into the painting, put the transparency onto the painting in the gel medium, brush gel medium over the transparency. Done!

Here is the painting I did in the class. I learned a lot by working on this painting.

First off...Laying in the transparency on top of a dark background, which can be seen in the close up here on the right, is not such a good idea. The darkness is very difficult to over come. I added polymer medium to the transfer which made it very glossy and that helped it to pop out a bit. The darkness made it sort of fade into the painting instead of glowing out.

Here is the detail of the transparency I did using the contact paper method. As described above I rubbed in a photocopy of some writing I printed out on the computer. With this area of the painting I made the background very light with pinks and yellows, white, etc. After laying in the lettering with soft gel medium and allowing it to dry I painted around it, adding darker colors, etc. This worked a lot better.