Melting Crayons - another way...

Since I posted about the melting crayon experience with a couple of my grandchildren (a few weeks ago - see "A grand(children) time" 8/9/16), I have had a lot of comments from friends who want to do it, too. So I thought I would also post this - it's another way of looking at this technique.

We just returned from a visit to Vermont (ahhh, it's wonderfully cool there...), and a granddaughter there had her own ideas about trying this method.

Maizie is really interested in fish and wanted to to do an underwater scene. She picked out all the blues and purples and decided to take the paper off all the crayons. She also had the idea of making fish shapes out of painters' tape (it's the kind that is easily removed) - she taped the shapes onto her board. (She just used foam core for her project)

Then she used the hot glue gun and stuck all the crayons to the board. She put the board in the dirt driveway and leaned it against an old milk crate.

She started up the hairdryer...

...and the crayons began to melt. It wasn't long before the fish were completely covered with crayon, but if you look closely, you can still see a vague outline.

Once the crayons hardened, she carefully peeled off the taped fish. She needed a knife in a couple of places.

Voila! Fish revealed! We were both struck by the wonderful texture of the 'ocean' and the very interesting bottom edge that had been in the dirt. It wrapped itself forward and hardened that way.

As we used to say, "Try it, you'll like it!"

The lighter side of art

I have been having such fun with my artwork lately. I had been thinking that I was being so serious...I needed to do something silly.

The St Michaels Art League has a Labor Day Show and Sale coming up soon. We will have artwork for sale from 34 different artists. Street banners from prior years will be on the clothesline and offered for sale along with the original banner artwork from this year.

This year we will also be featuring artists' demonstration throughout the two days. I will be offering a 'you paint' ice cream cone (just one dip cones) opportunity on Saturday afternoon. See post from July 20th.

I am signed up for two display panels. One panel will have some 'serious' art. The other one I will call "The Lighter Side of Art."

So, now I am working on a series of puns! I am doing watercolor and ink sketches for everyone to try to figure out and then giggle - or groan! (Groaning being the 'proper' response to a pun)

Here is a preview of a few of the sketches - see 'answers' below...and then drop by St Luke's Church lawn on Saturday, September 3 from10:00-5:00 or Sunday, September 4 from 12:30 to 5:00 and see more!

How did you do?

Apple Pie

Spring Training

Peace on Earth

Here's to you!

Hope you see you Labor Day weekend - come see some more...or if you have any ideas, let me know and I'll see about doing a sketch just for you!

A grand(children) time...

I have just waved good-by to two of my granddaughters who have been visiting with us for a week. It's always a busy, fun time...fishing, crabbing (we caught enough to steam and eat!), swimming, kayaking, shopping, MANY games of Sorry, watching the Olympics, and of course - arts and crafts.

So today instead of my artwork, I am posting the masterpieces that they created.

One of them had seen this idea of TV so we decided to try it.

We began with a brand new box of 96 crayons which they discovered in my craft box. We needed two canvas boards which I found in my workshop.

They each chose an assortment of rainbow colors (who knew there were that many different reds, blues, etc in that box!). They lined their crayons up on the canvas and we used a hot glue gun to stick them on.

Now for the fun part. We set up sort of a 'painting station' outside because it was going to be messy. We used newspaper, wax paper (to catch the drips at the bottom) and a cardboard backdrop...and got out a hair dryer!

Each girl blew her crayons and watched them drip in amazing ways! Here is the process of Hildry's masterpiece.

The crayons are glued on - she is beginning with hair dryer. It doesn't take long...

Here is the first round of dripping - we let it cool off and dry and decided to do it some more!

It was such fun to watch the colors drain out of the crayon papers and mix with each other! 

The wax paper at the bottom caught all the drippings and made another wonderful pattern of color!

Here is Winnie's artwork. As you can see she glued hers on straight across. Some of her crayons were 'metallic' and they created interesting textures and sparkle!

Her first dripping looked like this. We were really interested in the white space, too.

Some of the white space remained and the other colors are so vivid! We discovered that you can really blow those colors around. 

Here's a close up of her puddle of color. It still looks wet and runny, but by this time it had hardened.

Some might say that we 'wasted' about 4 dozen crayons, BUT... we had such a good time. 

I'm thinking that art should be FUN! 

The porch railing

A few years ago, as I was going down our main street in St Michaels, I spotted a porch railing that was tangled with a wonderful flowering vine. Of course, I got out my camera and began to take pictures. Then I forgot all about it.

Recently my watercolor class has been working on a project that we are calling "Painted Ladies." We are looking for Victorian houses with interesting features - windows, porches, carpenter's lace, interesting colors...  I went through my picture file and there was the porch railing picture I had taken - waiting to be painted.

I sketched in the railing and vine...and then began painting...

I went a little nuts with leaves, but loved the flow of vines. If you look closely, you can see part of the window sketched in above the vine. I realized after I got this far that the shutter was too small, so I drew it larger and added paint to it. In the photo, the house was gray and the shutter was black. That seemed a little boring to me. I wanted my painted lady to have color!

So now I have a yellow house with green shutters. I got this far and oh no, I made the shutter bigger but had left the clapboard siding too narrow.  Too many lines - too busy. I stopped and took it to class for a helpful critique.

It is so important to stop and really look at my work. Listening to others - what they see and say makes such a difference. Being too close to what I am doing gets in the way of making it better!

Comments: 

Define window sill

Add shadow under shutter 

More shadow under and at side of railing

Connect window to railing by having vine touch window

Add weight to vine in lower right hand corner - it will balance the shutter

What a difference!

I can always learn from others. Thanks!

Mat scrap inspirations...

My husband is a writer/photographer - we have a darkroom in our house where he develops, prints, mats and frames his photographs. A couple weeks ago he was having problems with the mat cutter (which, since I began to paint, we are now sharing).

I joined him at the mat cutting table and we began to practice cutting mats with some odd shaped scraps that were left over from another project. We solved the trouble issue and ended up with some long, skinny mats that were really interesting.

Now, normally I paint something and then cut a mat to fit what I have painted. Hmmm, what about doing it the other way around? Paint something to go in the mats we just cut! Here were some challenging shapes - yes, that would be inspiring...and fun.

I was looking for something light and whimsical - some watercolor and ink sketches would be perfect! It's a hot summer day...the ideal thing for the vertical shape would be... 

and then I tried a horizontal - 

That started me on a whole lot of other sketches - for another blog. I think they may end up being for sale at the annual art league Labor Day Show and Sale in St Michaels on September 3 & 4. Mark your calendars and come see them in person!

Once upon a time...

A few weeks ago as I was leaving my watercolor class with a couple of other students, one of them stopped and pointed to a tree, "Look at that!" she said. I turned around and saw a rusty old wheel in the crook of the tree. It had obviously been there a long time as the tree had grown around it.

I have passed by this tree dozens of times and never seen this before! (It makes me wonder how much else I have missed...) "There is a painting", I thought - I took a picture of it.

I have also been intrigued by some 'rivulet' paintings that I had recently seen. Perhaps I could do a rivulet painting of the old wheel.

The rivulet technique is one is which you begin by doing a drawing on watercolor paper. Then the paper is wet and a raw umber is applied. I covered the paper with a raw umber wash and then dabbed on some heavier blobs of the raw umber pigment.

Next, while the paper is still pretty wet, I held the painting up vertically and sprayed the whole thing so that the rivulets began to form. This takes a little while, but the texture is really amazing.

Here are some close ups - 

The next steps are to add various washes to define the picture and then lift some of the paint to capture the highlights and, for this picture, to identify the old wheel. 

"Once upon a time there was a cart..."   11x 14 watercolor $225

So, there you have it - interesting technique, texture and story...although the story has yet to be written. I don't have a clue as to how or why the wheel got into the tree. I/we need to make up something great and write a book about it!

Screen Painting

It's officially summer - things are supposed to slow down now... It seems the past few weeks I have  been on 'high' getting ready to slow down! I have missed blogging - it's good to get back.

A few weeks ago the art league offered a class in screen painting. It sounded like fun - certainly something very different from my watercolor or pastels.

Painted screens were very popular in the Baltimore area years ago. Various scenes were painted on the outside of the screen. People passing by could see the painting, but not look in the window. From the inside, you could see out and not see the painting at all! Amazing really.

There were about a dozen of us taking the class that morning. We had a little history lesson about the screens and then we all started to paint. When the screen was finished. We painted the wooden frame.

I am not going to revel the secrets of how you paint on only one side - just know that we all had a great time. If you want to find out more, google John Iamperi and see what he does.

This is the back of the screen...

And, here is the front!