Abstract study

Busy week, not too art-friendly. I managed to finish an abstract study I started last weekend. The first time I tried to use the cruciform format for an abstract painting, I ended up with a face. This time, I was determined to stay away from faces. I sort of succeeded. The inspiration for the palette came from a pillowcase with indian motives. I added yellow, green and a darker blue. I did not plan for God to be included, it just happened.

Monochromatic study

Homeless Heart

the road is too long
the sky is too vast
the wandering heart
is homeless at last

leonard cohen

The poem is part of the background - hence the name.

Insomnia ...

... is a symptom[1] of any of several sleep disorders, characterized by persistent difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep despite the opportunity. Insomnia is a symptom, not a stand-alone diagnosis or a disease. By definition, insomnia is "difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, or both" and it may be due to inadequate quality or quantity of sleep. It is typically followed by functional impairment while awake.

In my case, staying awake for now particular reason until 6AM resulted in functional impairment while awake all right. I followed doctor's suggestions for proper sleep hygiene: reading, painting, watching TV, counting sheep ...the result was this:

Shiva paintstiks and oil pastels

A while back I ordered some Shiva Painstiks. Don't really know why because I do not know how to use them! The are great for rubbings - done some of these. Great for applying on fabric - I have not tried because I am not working on fabric yet. The metallic ones are lovely and I used them on collages or textured surfaces to add a bit of oomph to the page. But I ordered some matte ones - and I even have the same color twice! I tried to use them on a portrait, but the result was disastrous. I tried blending them, but I was not too crazy about the reluts. I guess the colors I chose don't agree with each other. I'd love it if I could figure out how to use them correctly.

I then tried to paint a face in my altered book using the pastels diluted with linseed oil. This worked better, but the color was too transparent, almost the consistency of a glaze just oily. I do not have skin colors, so I used pink instead. Maybe next time add just enough oil to make a paste and not a glaze. One the first layer dried, I applied a bit of regular oil paints from the tube to add more color. The reason why I liked oil was the thickness of the paint and the fact that I could see the brush strokes and knife imprints. I suppose it could be an option to use my old paints in this manner, but not on paper of course, if I can patiently wait 24 hours before I can correct a mistake.

I also tried a quick oil pastles sketch of an older face using regular student grade pastels this time. Hmmm .....I guess that says it all. I am not crazy about the result. I guess I will stick to trying my hand at painting young faces for now.

Here is the spread from the book:

EDM #184

I only had time for few small trials. This is EDM #184 Draw a park bench. There weren't any where I was, so I drew a picnic table instead. I will have to teach myself GIMP so that I can enhance a bit these scans. One day, after I find a way squeeze 40 hours worth of to-do's into the 24 hours of a day.

French expressions

Clotilde at Chocolate & Zucchini has a list of food-related idioms. They never fail to make me laugh. This was the reason I bought few month back "100 expressions à sauver" by Bernard Pivot. He collected 100 idiomatic expression that are in danger of dissapearing from the everyday use. I have list of my favorite ones above my work computer. Here is a list of my favorite ones with idiomatic translation where I could find them:

1. peigner la girafe - doing something absurd, boring and useless
2. c'est la fin des haricots - that's the st straw
3. la semaine de quattre jeudi - literally, the four Thursdays week meaning never
4. prendre la clef des champs - running away
5. bête comme ses pieds - literally, dumb as one's feet or dumb as a doorknob
6. se monter le bourichon - to gert all worked up
7. tailler une bavette - chatter, gossip or natter (Brit).
8. fagoté comme d'as de pique - Larousse gives the equivalent "you look like you havebeen dragged through a hedge backwards".
9. doucement les basses - in moderation (also a 1970 movie with Alain Delon - how come I have not seen it is the question, considering that in my young days, Delon was my favorite actor ....)
10. avoir du foin dans ces bottes - being rich; I could not find anything that comes close the original. If anybody knows an idiomatic translation for this one, I'd love to hear from you!Thanks!
11. se moquer comme de l'an quarante - to not care. Larousse gives " to not give two hoots!" (fam.) The funny thing is some say this expresssion is still in use in Québec. It can very well be, although I cannot say I heard it around in the 15 years since I moved to Montréal.

In the end, words are art too, right?

Heureux qui comme Ulysse

Heureux qui comme Ulysse
A fait un beau voyage
Heureux qui comme Ulysse
A vu cent paysages
Et puis a retrouvé
Après maintes traversées
Le pays des vertes années

Par un petit matin d'été
Quand le soleil vous chante au coeur
Qu'elle est belle la liberté,
La liberté

Quand on est mieux ici qu'ailleurs
Quand un ami fait le bonheur
Qu'elle est belle la liberté,
La liberté

Avec le soleil et le vent
Avec la pluie et le beau temps
On vivait bien contents
Mon cheval, ma Provence et moi
Mon cheval, ma Provence et moi

Heureux qui comme Ulysse
A fait un beau voyage
Heureux qui comme Ulysse
A vu cent paysages
Et puis a retrouvé
Après maintes traversées
Le pays des vertes années

Par un joli matin d'été
Quand le soleil vous chante au coeur
Qu'elle est belle la liberté
La liberté

Quand c'en est fini de malheurs
Quand un ami sèche vos pleurs
Qu'elle est belle la liberté
La liberté

Battus de soleil et de vent
Perdus au milieu des étangs
On vivra bien contents
Mon cheval, ma Camargue et moi
Mon cheval, ma Camargue et moi

I watched yesterday the end of "Heureux qui comme Ulysse" - an old movie with Fernadel. The movie is based on "The Home Coming" by Marlena FRICK. Unfortunately, a transaltion of the poem is not available, but I could not help posting it anyway. The title song from the movie is here sung by Georges Brassens.

Goodies from Creative Catalyst Productions

The goodies from Creative Catalyst got here in time for the weekend! I've been watching the dvds on and off for the last few days.
Here is the list:

Polly Hammett "Design with the figure"
A detailed step-by-step description of the process she uses, from line drawing of the model to the final painting. I especially liked the discussion about composition (I am really weak at this, my training is in engineering after all) and the use of value sketches. I will try to use some of her tips when I will move to bigger size paintings. I liked also the fact that she is not influenced by the real color of the objects. She says that doing that will take away from her being in charge of the painting process. She also uses distortion, but just enough to add emphasis on certain aspects of the model.

Ann Baldwin "Telling stories in collage and paint"
I found Ann's website a while back, don't remember how. I like her abstract paintings and the series of collages she based on Proust. She used to be a literature teacher until she gave that up to be an artist full time. I am always impressed (and jealous I have to confess) when I read about people who managed to find what they like doing in life and have been successull enough to make a living out of it. Plus, she managed to bridge the two things that I like: literature and painting. Some of the general information I knew already (about glazes, texture etc). What I wanted was to see how she develops a collage as a composition and how she creates unity and finds the story that the piece represents. In my case, I make something (either collage or assemblage pieces) and then try to find the story in it. She starts in reverse - when she selects the images and text, the story is already theren the collage is piecing it together and adding emphasis.

Anne Bagby "Paper, patterns and galzing"
I love her faces and the pattern in her papers is exquisite. One thing that it was not clear to me in the dvd is if she sketches the faces from memory or if they come from other sources (photos etc). She makes all her papers using deli paper as a base.
I tried making some using also tracing paper, coffee filters and napkins from the cofee shop. They all worked to a certain extent, I suppose it all depends of the look one wants in the finished piece. In the process of making the paper, I realized the importance of a good, deep cut rubber stamp. I tried store bought stamps - lame results because the cut was not deep enough. the best results I had using eraser stamps I cut myself. They were small so it took a while to cover the papers. S on my to do list now I have a new tsk - finding an image suited to a bigger stamp that I can cut myself. As for the process of creating her paintings, I will probably try it in my journal or altered book, but it will be too similar to hers. I will use the paper though and I will probably make some more.

Rhododendron EDM #66

This is a sketch I did from an online picture.

Portugese cabin

In Nita Leland's collage book, I saw a newspaper/watercolor collage that picked my curiosity. It raised the humble newspaper to a higher level; I am always happy to find creative uses for non-artistic materials such as newspaper, caulking, washers, scraps of metal, found papers (I sometimes pick up stuff on the street..shhh, don't tell!). Of course I wanted to give it a try.

I created these 2 collages on mat board using the same scene - an old wood cabin in a field. One was done using various found and hand made papers and the other one, using newspaper. Different look-and-feel...

Oil pastel portrait

I sketched this face few days ago on a page in my altered book. It was ment to be a test using different brushes and different strokes to see how that alters the result. Instead, I ended up using oil pastels. I would have liked stronger colors, but I don;t know how to blend oil pastels other than use white or another light color on top. I seldom use white in paintings because I find it take the mojo out of the colors. Also, the blending is less precise and I am learning to not get caught up in this. Different medium, different feel. After all this is the whole point of the exercise.

It just crossed my mind I could try using the blending stump or one of those rubber tipped blenders (disclaimer: I am not sure they are called blenders and I do not yet have one as they are not cheap. I am not sure there are any cheap art supplies sold in the art stores! There... I had to vent a bit, back to pastels ...) to see if I can get a more precise line. Just for the sake of the exercise. If it becomes too precious, I will mess it up anyway as I don't like too much preciousness ....

And at the same time, I remembered the shoe box full or oil paints reminiscent from my oil painting days. It seems now logical that one of the next experiments will be a face using oil paints. For that though I need a stronger support. Might recycle some old canvass ....hmmm

In the meantime, here is the Pastel Lady:


PS. The above mentioned rubber blenders are actually rubber shapers - ment for pushing paint around... duh...

Abstract I

This past weekend was a long one and I decided to play with the abstract painting concepts outlined in Laura Reiner's book.

First attempt: use one's name as a starting poing for absract composition. I used a piece of watercolor paper with the background already painted and I wrote down my name, then extended lines and filled in the spaces and ... voila! I enjoyed the procsess. The final colors are a bit too dark, but the background was dark to begin with.


Second try: use of a cross pattern as a layout for the composition. I used all 5 shades of Golden reds by applying washes of various intensities and created the cross shape. But then, while I was trying to figure out what next, I "saw" two eyes staring at me from the white spots left on paper. So I used different lines formed by the shades of paint and this is what I came up with:


And finally, using a picture as a source for an abstract painting. I think I made a mistake in starting it as an abstract but then trying to squeeze realism into it. I used a postcard from the Grand Canyon as inspiration.



I used to think abstract painting is "easy" - after all it is only lines and squares and rectangles and blobs of color... Hmmm ....I reconsidered the preconception (false false false!!!). There might be squarea and blobs, but figuring out how to place them so that the whole makes some sense it is not always easy, I would think.

Another experiment was using a photo from a amagazine as an underpainting for a portrait. I used Sarah Jessica Parker - believe it or not. An advertisement for some face cream or something. I worked in my altered book journal. After I glued the face, I applied matte medium and then gesso diluted with a bit of water. I was after a different final effect which I cannot explain but I know I will know when I get there.

Imaginary creatures

A while back, I started playing "cloud gazing". I always keep papers handy to wipe leftover paint on and create backgrounds. I started looking at the blotches of color and try to see figures - animals, faces, whatever. I do this with the old palette papers as well. Lately, i seem to "see" mostly faces though ...

Few weeks ago, I "discovered" a couple of creatures on a piece of watercolor paper painted many moons ago as a practice for stamping or gelatine printing ... I think. Anyway...I "extracted" the creatures and added them to these small collages:

Lost marbles - reward to whoever finds and returns them!

This is it - it is official! I lost all my marbels. Swept in the pre-"Julia and Julie" french cooking frenzy, I bought today "The silver spoon"! 2000 recipes - no less! Everything one wanted to know about italian cooking. 'nough recipes for 3 lifetimes, I suppose. No, I will not engage in any challanges of the "cooking-all-recipes-in-five-year" kind. There are 4 times as many recipes as in the "Mastering the art of french cooking"!

I am an endurance runner, constantly checking the scale to make sure my half and/or full marathon training schedule is not impacted by the last ice cream craving or pizza feast. In fact, I have home made pizza dough frozen since spring, all because it has too many carbs! That, in spite of the 50-60 km I run every week. And I am buying what?! The mother of all pasta recipes....I am telling you - my marbles are lost!

But I cannot wait to start cooking ....

New faces

This time I started with the background then added the faces. For the first one, I used paind, stamping, hand writing, collage and then painted the face. For the second one, the background is made of various papers and I used the lines created by the collage to delimit the face. I like them both, but I feel the first one is missing something - not sure what yet ..

and more faces ...

Here I used caulking to create texture in the hair and i tried to paint a hand. Lots of fun ...

Sleeping beauty

Once i painded the first faces, I wanted to make changes. After all I cannot paint faces from the same angle all the time. This is how I came up with the sleeping beauty. It is on watercolor paper with collage background. For the other one, in the background I practiced mixing colors using the new palette (alizarin crimson hue, naples yellow and varioous blues), then I added the face.



These are some faces I painted before thaking the workshop - just for comparison's sake: