Hot Spring, Art and Distractions.

So,  we have had an odd Spring. We went from cold and continual dumping of snow to hot temperatures. There may have been just a couple of 60 degree days and then went into hot, hot, hot. This week we had 91, hot today again and this weekend - Memorial Day weekend they are predicting 90,95. Ugh. I have gardening to do so will see if it is cool tomorrow to get some things in the garden.

This time of year, after being trapped in the house for so long you want to get out and drive. We have done that once, but I also want our fishing license. It is hard to photograph when the fish are calling. Our Summer is so short that when you have time you want to do it all.

I signed up for the Go Paint! Plein air even in Eau Claire. It has grown through the years and the participants, activities and awards have grown. I did the Quick Paint in Phoenix Park a couple of Saturdays ago. We went from cold to 80 degrees out there. I got a painting mostly done - done enough to submit for the judging. I took it home to fine tune and ended up putting more on it so I just count it as a regular painting and not a plein air. I had to go back to photo the benches and light posts, but haven't added those yet. I was struggling getting started and this sweet little girl began to talk to me and I was able to relax and work. It had been a busy day with prom participants strolling and having pictures taken by themselves and their parents besides the other walkers.

It made me realize that the plein air that I enjoy is not the contests. I like to go to a park, pick out a nice spot while my husband birdwatches or photographs. I can stand or sit where I want, when I want, and for how long I want. I can choose my spot with nobody looking over my shoulders (even though I do enjoy talking with those interested). Maybe it is the introvert in me. I am working through problems, thinking,  and I don't want to call attention to myself when I am working. I don't like being hot, being cold, the bugs, possible snakes. I know, it sounds like I am a princess:) When I do the contests, I am often working alone and maybe the difference would be to have that friend to paint along with. Go Paint! tries to help you meet other artists by the train event in Tiffany Bottoms to paint and the get-together at Many Fires. It still may be hard to connect when you are working on your own things. I also consider the financial effects of taking a full day off of work and if I do take a few jobs, I have my feel in both worlds and don't have the mindset. Maybe another time when I can be free to just do it.

Last year I dropped out because I was sick. This year I did the Quick Paint. A family member passed away that day so it was hard to concentrate. I think that I will do it on my own for awhile. In my own way, in my private locations, in the shade. It also is hard to be by water to paint. The fishing calls me.

The Week of Plein Air Painting

This has been a crazy week. I worked, there was a baby born and I babysat for 3 children - one 6, a 4 year old and  a 1 year old for a day and a half. Very good children but at Grandma's house we are making art, playing in the yard and all sorts of things. I was ready for a nap when they left. Yesterday was the first day of my plein air event - Go Paint! Eau Claire. This is the 4th time doing this - technically 3 since I was sick that week last year. Yesterday was the Quick Paint at 3 pm. It goes for 2 hours and you paint like mad. It is like Master Chef where when the whistle blows, you lay your brushes down. It was 80 degrees out and a beautiful sunny day.

This Quick Paint is held in Phoenix Park. It is along the riverfront in Eau Claire, WI. They had renovated the area and it has walking paths and rail bridges that you can walk over. The Farmer's Market is located there with the Community Gardens being across the street. There are always people walking there. Yesterday it was especially busy. It is Prom weekend. There were all sorts of students dressed in their finest parading around in groups and their proud parents taking photos. There was room for everyone.

I was stressing, Things were going slower than usual. I had gotten to the point that I figured that I wouldn't finish, my problem- solving was slowing me down,etc. God sent this little girl to calm me down. This sweet little girl came over to look and talk to me. I instantly relaxed because I thought it was ok to not finish since she was interested. I teach and sometimes kids hit your heart. She was kind, cheerful, just the kind of encouragement that I needed. She stayed with  me for a while - her mom was a little bit over but was watching her - and I was able to start up and paint while she was talking. She eventually moved on to look at other art but would stop by a couple of times again. I did finish enough to show at the end. She asked her mom if she would take a picture of us by my picture. I stood behind the easle and she to the side as her mom too the photo of us and my name.

Plein air for me is a stretch as it is. I am not really an outdoor girl. I will do it for gardening, camping or hiking and fishing, but I don't like being hot, people looking over your shoulder, breaking your concentration, the bugs, possible snakes, ticks, etc. What I usually don't like is the having to paint on cue - it feels like performing. I did this yesterday because I wanted to meet people. When your week goes on you might never even see anybody except or the group get togethers. Yesterday I met several local artists, but the one that will stay in my memory is the angel that came to visit me and calmed me when I was stressing.

My painting at best is so-so. I know what needs to be done. I will probably go back this week and make the additional changes that need to be done to resolve this picture into something more interesting. I can add the tree and benches and other details that I just didn't have time for. It will no longer be a quick paint but I would rather have a good painting than a medocre one.

Plein Air - Go Paint! Eau Claire

Saturday marks the beginning of the plein air event - Go Paint! Eau Claire. It began about 5-6 years ago as just Go Paint! in Durand, Wisconsin. Last year it moved to include Eau Claire. I did it for 2 years in Durand and last year was sick during it so I missed out. Hopefully I can shake this cold by this weekend and enjoy it.

The range of the area that you can paint has expanded immensely.  It used to be a 10 mile radius of Durand, Wi. Now it goes from Nelson on the Mississippi to Augusta, Wisconsin. It is a 10 mile radius of the Chippewa River and I think they are now including that section of the Eau Claire river also. There are so many things to paint that it is hard to decide what to paint. There is a Quick Paint on Saturday to kick off this event. It is at Phoenix Park in Eau Claire. You will paint from 3-5pm, frame and turn it in and have judging, and awards will be at 6pm. I will go before that to register and get the stamp on the back of the canvases or boards that I want to use during the week. I usually take extra since I do not know what I am going to paint or use.  Our house is within the 10 mile radius so I can paint at home. They are including Chippewa Falls so I could paint things there also, but I painted up there so much last year I want to paint something else.

You can paint on your own all week. I think it would be more fun to find a friend to paint with. My husband usually goes with me on some events or trips but oftentimes I am painting alone. I then try to be in  a safe public place. When painting you are concentrating on what you are doing and somebody could come up behind you and you wouldn't know. Wednesday is the Tiffany Bottoms trip. It is a nature area and they take you in by a rail car. It is not a train by the usual sense - it is open, more of a logging car. You have to haul all your stuff in on this train so I try to take as little as I can get by with. They also have a biffy car since you are pretty remote and are there for hours. Later in the day there is a dinner at Many Fires in Fall Creek. I didn't do it last year so I don't know what to expect. I guess we start about 3 and paint their area, socialize etc. That should be fun. Friday is the day to turn in your art. You get to put up to 4 on display. I hope I have some good ones.

It is a big range of where you can paint. When it was just Durand there were many interesting things to paint. I have an idea of what I want to do this year but am not sure how much I will actually get done. When I am driving through areas it is like my mind is taking note of scenes to possibly paint. I need to get a county park pass so I can go into those areas also. Whatis nice too is that it doesn't have to be realistic. I think maybe I could do some patterned versions also. Not sure how that will go over.

Here is a partial list of my  options -

Home - scenery around the yard, the creek at the back, the horses across the street, chickens,
             gardens, flowers, some still lifes with gardening stuff

Close to home - barn falling down, the old gas station, the hill with cows, Lowes Creek, Lowes Creek
             Park, fairgrounds

Southside Eau Claire - the river under the highway bridge, the Chippewa Trail, the wayside rest,

Eau Claire - Putnam Park, Carson Park (Braun's Bay), confluence, from the walking path, misc parks,

Points East - Parks, Big Falls, City parks in Fall Creek, Beaver Creek Center, Old Mill, farmland,
              beaver dam area, Altoona Parks/fishing scenes, barns

Points North - Lake Hallie, Chip Falls, Lake Wassota, Irvine Park, My friend Sandy's gardens

Points West - bike path on O, Durand, Nelson, train stuff lying around at Tiffany Bottoms, Nelson,
                    Mississippi River





             

Spring and all things new

So, Spring is finally here and long overdue. I know that here in Wisconsin our last frost date is toward the end of May so it is possibly not quite over yet. Last night on the news they said it was our coldest April on record. That is the kind of record that you do not want!  Two weeks ago we had over 13" of snow dumped on us with the Twin Cities - about 80 miles away - getting 21". We are sick of snow and are feeling cheated out of our Spring. It is these teasers at this time of year that makes it hard to commit to gardening. Sometimes in March even you are itching to garden because it is so nice. The garden centers usually are open mid April but not this year. Even the bee deliveries have been put back.  We went from 20 degrees F below normal for this time of year (around 10 - 40)  to 83 degrees overnight.

This is a busy time of year with things like that as well as gardening to think of and the yard to get back in shape.  We have a baby due and will be babysitting for a few days too. Hopefully it will be nice outside for them to play. Saturday. We have baby chicks in the kitchen with more coming soon. I have been busy at work because there are field trips and meetings to get in at the end of the year. The fishing opener is this weekend. On top of this is our local plein air event. You feel like a juggler trying to get it all in, but it is a nice change to have the warmth of the sun on your face, being able to get out of the house and in the outdoors and participate in life again.

Experimenting with Inktense

This is just the beginning of my journey with Inktense. I am just starting to see  the possibilites of what can be done with this material. I had bought a set a few years back, looked at the limited colors in the 12 pack and played a little bit with it before setting it aside. I substitute teach so I have different times with no students so I wanted to have something small that I could bring with to work on. I had taken acrylics in a small sealed palette with cups, but I wanted something smaller and easier to take with in odd places.

So, I dug out my Inktense pencils. I had thought of getting rid of them before, but because they were pricey, I hung on to them. I am glad that I did! Even though it felt like limited colors originally, I found that I could blend and layer to get the shades I wanted. I eventually did buy the larger tin of 24 and notice colors in one of the online stores that I want to pick up to compliment my set.

Disclaimer - My creations now are experiments. More developed artwork will come. I started with bookmarks since they are small. I can use a heavy weight paper of different textures to see what I like. I have seen online about using them different ways but most roads lead to Pinterest collections. I wanted to see actual artists. So, instead of wading through those sites, I wanted to add in the blog some of my own things. Most are experiments, so don't expect big things yet - those will come.

So, there is drawing with the pencils themselves. You can leave them dry - right out of the pencil,  but since I use a textured paper I did not get anything smooth. It was a lumpy coloring. It would have been different on a hot press paper.  I really wanted it to look like the ink it was. I found I could draw out a design and color it in. It did not even need to be a solid thick color to begin with. When coloring, I took into account what areas I wanted to have lighter and either left that area white for another time or just had my coloring lighter. There are light colors but they do not always go over a darker color like acrylic paint might. It seems to be a mix of watercolor and acrylic methods. With using these pencils you have 2 choices. You can do a solid color (as thin or thick as you like) and then paint over it with water or you can use the pencils and make blends of colors and go over that. It really does feel like you can be creative with how you do your pictures. When I had a color/area that I liked I would paint it with water and let it dry. I would not  dampen touching areas at the same time. By waiting for the one section to dry before coloring or  wetting the next you have control over bleeding. You can even color over an area that you have already colored and dampened to get the shade or intensity and depth that you were intending. Another way of working is to dip the pencils themselves in water and apply it to the paper while still wet.

I have been doing bookmarks since the small pieces give me a chance to experiment with how they work. I have colored and painted water over both sides but will test it also. I want to make sure that all inktense has been dampened and is permanent because I would hate to use it and have unset ink on the pages. I might also laminate it to seal it in but it does not need to be. I have read that varnishing is iffy but that is a future experiment also.

Inktense is supposed to work well as a multimedia material. I wanted to see what that meant by trying out some different things. I have some pictures that I did using the water soluable pencils. They have been drawn then  using a brush with water, blend the drawn and colored in areas so you have control over your light and dark values. Because it is a graphite? it tends to be a graytone picture. Some things work well with that material as it is, but other pictures may have so many details that it ends up mushed together. I used some Inktense accents on some of my pictures to see if it would perk them up. I think it was a big improvement. I had pictures that I was ready to throw out and felt now that some were salvagable.  The issue may come up that when originally drawn with the water soluable pencils that not all of it  was dissolved at that time and maybe is reactivated or something when you use water to activate the Inktense. I did not have much mushing, but it is something to watch for and consider.

Purple Iris - Pencil wash drawing
colorized with Inktense

Before Iris - pencil wash drawing

Schoolhouse - experiment - watersoluable pencil
wash drawings colorized with Inktense

Yellow and Blue Sunflowers - multimedia
acrylic paint on paper with Inktense accents
and dimentional fabric paint

Landscape Experiment with Inktense pencils on light
blue acrylic paint base

One of my latest experiments is with acrylic paint. Online there is talk where you can do it over an acrylic painting (but can't do acrylic on top of Inktense). There are a lot of variables to this method which each artist will have to experiment with. One is whether you are painting on paper or primed canvas. Both are affected differently. Another thing is how many coats of acrylic are on before you add the Inktense. If it is even a couple of coats it gets to be more plastic. Sometimes the color will ball up, sometimes you can wipe some of it off even after it has been on it for a while. I added details with the pencils on an abstract and it came out light (the staining), and when I did a landscape could scratch in for details. I think there is a lot of variation, textures and experiments that will come with working with the material.

I know even for myself, I am just scratching the surface. There are a lot of possiblilities using the pencils. Using the blocks, fabric applications, and even printmaking open up a whole new world. It seems like with the drawing that the materials seem to last for quite a while too so that is a bonus.

Counterfeit Art Supplies

I have had a few things lately that makes me wonder about the art supplies that we buy. I like it if I can score some cheaply at a thrift sale, garage sale or thrift store. Sometimes there are lots on Ebay and I wonder where they came from - did somebody steal them to be able to sell them so cheap? One of my latest things have been Inktense pencils. I saw two kinds - one in the regular blue tin and other sets that said Inktense but the pencils were painted white and were from China. Even though the Chinese ones were cheaper I wondered if they were knock offs and bought the blue one instead. The blue ones say "Made in the UK.

Yesterday I was at a thrift store and saw some Yarka watercolor paint in tubes. I picked those up because I knew it was a good brand. I went on Amazon to check out what kind of deal I got. There were two entries with this size of package of Yarka tube paint. I looked at the first one and they had common paint color names. It also had the same stock number that I had bought. The problem was that the one I bought had a different box and the paint names were different too - they were not the usual pthalo blue, cad red etc that the first box had listed for colors. They had more original names like emerald green, golden ochre, English red. The box I had said "Made in Russia" on the side and on the paints. The box I bought had an orange lily on it. The second set had the orange lily, but a different stock number and didn't list the colors that came in the box. I checked the 2 reviews and they are what set off red flags. One said theirs said "Made in China" on it. They were used to using Yarka and said that it was close but they could tell that it wasn't the original.

They then bought the other box and it was the same thing. I went on the internet to see if  Yarka was still made in Russia and there was a linkin article by an expert that said that they were made in Russia and who the manufacturer was - also in Russia. The article was written in 2015. I will need to contact her to see if it still is. Dick Blick and Jerry's both have a blurb on a different Yarka product that they are still made in Russia. The other thing is that it says on the box that I have and has the same thing printed on the cover of the box that it is imported by Jack Richison. When I check the Jack Richison website they no longer carry this tube watercolor paint but still carry pan watercolors. That is not saying somebody got a stash and is selling them but it just makes you wonder.

I guess the reason I am being touchy about this is because one of the Facebook groups I follow is talking about people stealing their designs (mostly from the far East) and making money off of them. Original intellectual property has lost out because of the theft of copyrights/patterns/inventions stolen and their rights have been infringed upon. I want to know if I am buying Yarka, that it is actually Yarka made in Russia instead of a knock off made in China. Passing off one for the other is fraud.  It is knowing that I really am getting quality and not wasting my money on a fake. People have spent time and money developing product, setting up their businesses, building a reputation, and it is not right or fair that somebody hacks it and makes money off of somebody else's hard work. I would rather support the inventor than the thief. As artists, we do not want our artwork stolen and somebody else making money that we should be making off of our creativity and hard work so we, in kind should be supporting other innovators and creators in maintaining their copyright also. If ideas/ inventions/ art/ copyrights continue to get stolen at the rate they have to date, then there will be nobody inovating anymore because it is just not worth it.

Sketchbook Overhaul

I have been working on Art for a long time. Because of that I am thinking about what I like and what I do not. What works for somebody else may not work for me and vice versa. I also work in acrylic paint, so cool things that work for an oil painter may not work for me. I have already shown you my overhaul on my palette. This is my overhaul on my sketchbook.

New Sketchbook idea

I love having a sketchbook with me. I get ideas, I see things to draw, I get an idea or observation to write down. I write down about what I want to do, my shopping list, what is going on in my life like a journal, and I have an never-ending "to-do" list. I substitute teach and end up with prep time, kids at recess, lunch, specials time. After doing it a few years, I am sick of reading and that is why I draw or brainstorm. I might be there one day just to watch kids take tests or work on their research papers. I ended up with a big stack of sketchbooks that I never look at and ideas long forgotten. I had begun to rip those apart and keep only what I want to keep in a large blank book. So, I write a lot of crap that I don't want or need to keep  and I need to find a way to take care of it quickly.

Because I haul these things I did not want a big one in a tote. It gets heavy enough as it is with water, lunches, and my purse. Because of doing some plein air events, I think about how can I take everything I want in a small way because I may have to haul it in myself. I shouldn't have to take everything and the kitchen sink because I am away from my studio.   I did not want a small one because sometimes I can only draw small pictures nor did I want a large one which takes up a lot of room. I chose a small/ medium size 3 ring binder to use. This size binder fits a half sheet of printer paper.

My binder/sketchbook is assembled with what I need. Front cover on this one has a pocket that I can put a picture in. I have a small clipboard that goes in the front pocket. If I desired and was doing  a 5x7" painting or sketch that also could go in that front pocket.

So, front pocket - mini clipboard

      1 section - calendar ( printed from free printables online to get the size I wanted 
 
      1 section - contacts/address book (I am using                          lined paper)

      1 section - sketch paper - printer paper cut in                          half

      1 section - "to-do" list - all in one space so I                            can add on as new things come                              up  or remove a page when it is                              all   done - and throw it away! I                            don't have to write my list                                      repeatedly or all
                        over the place (again and again)

      1 section - Blah, Blah - the things I feel compelled to write about - things I saw, misc
                        these are easy to look over and throw out later.

      1 section - acrylic paint color studies - for me to take on the go                          without having to have another system. I can do                                each tube color on a page, add additional pages for                            more experimenting with mixes. It makes it flexible                          but also so I can take it with to locate colors when
                        doing studies.

 1 section - Inktense color studies. I am just starting to use these                          and maybe be also do them for multimedia work . I                            have  24 pencils but need to see the actual color washed.
                  Under this section or make a new section, I can do the                      washable pencils so I can see  way it looks colored,                          washed and the softness/hardness qualities.

So, that is my new sketchbook overhaul. I think it has everything that I want and need. I use a rubber
band to hold it shut but could change that also. My concern is how long will this binder hold together with use. I may have to check out different models, use packing tape to reinforce or play around with different things. The only thing that would be nice is to have a pencil pouch on the inside. Not sure if they make them to fit. The beauty of this is that I do not have to load it up with paper for writing or drawing. I can take what I think I will need for the day. I also do not have to keep it in there like I used to do with a sketchbook, waiting for the sketchbook to be full.