Tina - Lesson 6 - Project 1

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Tina - Lesson 6 - Project 1 - Depth and Atmosphere, Shape and Line

OK. I followed the instructions in Lesson 6 each step: paint lifting, transparent paint, lifted and wiped with damp paper towel, veiled white paint, then opaque white paint, lifting from tacky surface, then dry-brush over textures, and obscuring depth with opaque white. Finally, I added shape and line, veiled with diluted white paint. It was fun playing with paints. But did I accomplish the objectives? Have a look and tell me what you think. :-)

On #1, I started with 3 colors using Liquitex acrylics neutral gray and cadmium yellow medium, and Reeves acrylic titanium white. Gray and yellow gave me beautiful olive green like the kind you see in autumn. I painted grids of colors gray, gray-white, yellow, yellow-gray, yellow white and just plain white. I use techniques such as paint-lifting, lift and wiped with damp paper towel, transparent paint, veiled white paint and opaque white paint. I decided to try the donut. Surprisingly, I like the feel of it – maybe because of the scale and thickness of the donut vis-à-vis the line and the paper format. It feels balanced. 

 

Ex. #1.  Acrylics on Water Color Paper, 9 x 9

Moving on to #2, I worked the same process as #1. I was in-to-it, feeling good; added blue texture on the right side, three small donuts equal size in blue, and a black line. The composition didn’t feel quite right; the three donuts looked like its floating by themselves. In my dream, I saw the three donuts in a triangle like the billiard balls. So, this morning, I added a thick black triangle around the donuts and tried to veil it and the texture with white paint. It didn’t work. The more I worked it, the more I messed up. Finally I wiped the whole paper with damp paper towel and re-drew the triangle in black and added the blue texture underneath it. Lessons learned here: (1) once I glazed the piece with Golden’s glossy glazing liquid, all the colors are locked – can’t manipulate them anymore; (2) the first impression is always the right one; if it feels and looks good, leave it alone. So here it is:

Ex. #2. Acrylics of Water color Paper, 9 x 9

Ah, just when I thought I have mastered the techniques, curiosity took over, what if I do this, what if I do that? So, I tried complementary colors blue and orange. On the first layer, I was able to hold the balance between the two colors. Then I added the white and I ran into problems. Colors became muddy and it took me awhile to recover the bright colors. I added texture by applying white paint using sea foam. The stain created a kind of lacey texture. It looked pretty. I added a rectangle in orange; hmm, not strong enough – color is too similar to the background. I changed the orange to black, ah, too strong. I added veiled white and dry-brush, and I gave up. You see, I forgot the lessons learned in #2. So, this is it, for now. 

Do you see the wind blowing through?

Ex. #3. Acrylics on Water Color Paper, 9 x 9