Embers and Frost

Well, 3 paintings on one day! A new record. Safe to say I'm getting over my slump. Now that the weathers cooling off I will start getting back into Encaustics too!

Anyways, I broke out my airbrush on 'Noplan'; the painting in my last post, and the techniques I used in there made me want to experiment more with airbrush.
There is a very basic technique that must airbrushers come across by accident, and most times unhappily. YOu get it many ways: paint too thin, brush too close, too much paint released too fast... you get a dot, then these little tendrils of paint wiggle out all over ruining your perfect fuzzy dot! It can be frustrating to a beginner. I happen to think that the effect is pretty neat, and exploited it in 'Noplan' quite a bit.

Today I painted 2 paintings for the anonymous art show they're called "Embers" and "frost". They're a pair (diptych)  and they were both donw using the spidering technique with airbrush in a differnt way from "Noplan".

 

Embers came first with a light coat of a couple different yellows, I then added some cad orange into the yellow and kept spraying. I never cleaned out the colour before adding more, it gave it a more gradual  transition between colours. I really saturated this one, and let the air push around the thick puddles of colour. as the air focused on one area it would push colour away revealing the under colours and create neat funnels of overlapping colours. 

Frost was after, i had it painted upside down the whole time and it wasn't until i turned it over (to the way it is now) did I actually like it HAHA! i used a more standard spidering technique this time, but i did alot more "drilling" to the base colour in this one. Both were gessoed with canvas coloured gesso, to the warm colour of the gesso i think really looked great peeking through the really cold blues.

And there it is. Not all airbrushing is flaming Harley tanks, and naked women with badly proportioned bodies.

Noplan - Painting for Work

So we put paintings up in frames we have for sale at work to show how the frames look with stuff in them because frames are often difficult sells since people cant envision the way the frame could work with a painting.
Ann asked me to paint on a 11x14 canvas panel last week to put them in the new contemporary frames at work and so I did. I got a rough photo in my poorly lit home before I took it to work. It wasn't quite dry so there are some cloudy spots around the mesh. I'm going to take better photos at work on tuesday, in the frame as well so you can see that.

Here's my painting. Can you guess how I made it?

 

I'll Tell you: I gessoed the canvas with Tri-Art Canvas Gesso (canvas colour) and did some rough blue and green patters with dry brushing. I then Took my Iwata Airbrush and with some Createx Green, white, and Golden Blue's and greens (switched often without cleaning the brush between colours. gave some nice blended colours) I would let out alot of paint onto the board so I had a fair puddle, then releasing the air only (dual action airbrush necessary) I pushed the paint around letting it spider when it wanted to and creating all the ripples and variations in colour. I played around with that for quite a while. The paint was quite thick. I took some mesh and pressed it into the paint to make little rough mesh marks, and I also sprayed using the mesh as a stensil.Then I waited a bit for it to get at least dry enough to work with. While it was drying I spray painted some of the mesh green. I then tore the mesh into strips and layed them on the canvas board. I dumped some polymer medium over the mesh (straight from the bottle *plop plop*) and used a palette knife to spread it out. I left some sweeps of polymer over the larger area but kept it quite thick where the mesh was to hold it in place. I made some adjustments to the mesh when it got shuffled.

I then took some Schminke powdered pigment (bronze) and dumped and sprinkled it around (haha, pretty expensive to dump but I did it anyways!). Finally I took some other mesh scraps folded it up and scratched some of the paint off the canvas, and rubbed it to distress the canvas a little. I dragged some of the polymer around too. 

Thats it! Took less than 2 hours I think total, but it looks alright. WHen i have a better photo of it completely dry I'll post it available as a print :)

Alberta wax Flowers

I finally did another "painting"... Art, work, piece... whatever. The point is - its art, and i did it. God its so satisfying. watching my fingers as I type covered in Canvas coloured gesso, its like being back in my comfy clothes.



How its made: I had a regular cheap 8"x8" canvas and added a couple coats of Tri-Art Canvas gesso (canvas colour. Its like a buff). i dry brushed some Tri- Art Burnt Umber on there to grunge it up, and then did a bit of dry brushing of the Gesso again.

Once that was dry I got my tin of Gamblin cold wax and with a small palette knife spread a thin layer on. I used that layer to stick down my dried flowers. I then took the cold wax and carefully spread it all over the top of the flowers to hold them in place. I varied the thickness of the wax in some areas. the Wax is not transparent completely so it will stay opaque on some areas. it will stay pretty close to how it looks now when its dry. The result is some varied textures and opacity. I think it has a neat antique look to it.

What do you think?

verve gallery auction

MY art is up for auction (as well as others) on Ebay right now! proceeds go to the Boys and girls club of Canada! This is a collection of pieces that were painted by 6 artists of various backgrounds. The pieces were painted live at the RDS Skate Supply Lower Lonsdale Block Party and Skate Competition. Each artist was given a 3' x 4' canvas and some spray paint (compliments of Opus Framing and Art).

my painting is in it:

Charity Painting by `guruubii on deviantART

View Ebay Auctions: [link]

My painting for auction: [link]

Please pass this along and spread the word for the sake of the chillin's and for my ego. HAHA! its for a really good cause :)
Thanks guys!

Definition: French Grey?

At my job at the art store we just got in stock the Prismacolour double ended markers and various sets. One of the sets is a french grey set. I've used the french greys and they are lovely but what i want to know is what is the definition of french grey?

to me they look almost like greyed sepia tones. Someone at my work said he thought they were half way between a cool grey and a warm grey but to me that ... is very off. the between would be a neutral grey and the french are far from neutral. The prismacolour website doesn't show very accurately the colours but in person the french greys are quite brown.

So my question to you is, what is the definition of French Grey?