I had some fun just scribbling with a pencil and then filling in the different areas with different bodied acrylic paints – from fluid Golden, to soft body Liquitex, to heavy body Liquitex acrylic paint. I made marks with a brush but also used Posca and Liquitex markers.
I loved how for me this kind of dude started to show up – tongue, nose, eyes and a funny hat included :) What do you see?
The quote reads – “I’m a million different things every day of the week.” – Cecelia Ahern
My new online workshop Artful Adventures with Henri Matisse begins TODAY, September 29 with the first technique lesson. (It’s also the LAST DAY of the $39 Early Bird Sale* price).
Would you like to go on a little Artful Adventure with inspiring project ideas, art journaling, mixed media techniques and beyond? My Artful Adventure workshops explore how we can draw inspiration and technique ideas from master artists and this time we’re looking at a favorite artist of mine, Henri Matisse. We will touch on pattern, color, shape, and more, all based on the art of Matisse, but in a way that YOU can adapt to YOUR style of making art.
Hello from my Creative Squad! Today we have a post from Jordan Hill who is working with gouache this month along with my ATC Mixup stencil, Triangle Love rubber stamp set, and our theme: Favorite Art – My Way – Look at a favorite work of art and create something inspired by it, drawing from the colors, shapes, subject matter, feeling etc. that strikes you most when you look at it.
Hello everyone! I’m excited to be back for the month of September to share another art journal page with all of you. For this month’s theme of “Favorite Art – My Way”, I thought it might be fun to do a master study of a painting by copying one directly into my art journal. I’ve been wanting to play around with gouache for a while now (its been quite a few years since I last used it), and I decided to use the painting ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, painted by Johannes Vermeer as my inspiration. Let’s get into it!
The first step was to select a page to work on. Since I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted to paint, I chose a page that I thought the illustration would look good next to.
Once I had determined which page I was going to use, I decided to create the background first. In the original “Girl with a Pearl Earring” painting, the background is quite dark. I added some green and black paint directly onto my page, then moved it around with a paintbrush. Once it had been spread out, I blotted a crumpled up paper towel over the surface to give it a mottled texture.
Once the background had dried, I used a white colored pencil to lightly block in the shapes of the painting. I copied directly from a photo of the original and tried to focus on getting the general idea of the painting down on paper, since I knew I was going to cover it up anyways.
Next, I prepared my palette. Like I mentioned before, I knew that I wanted to use gouache, so I selected some colors of paint that matched the tones in the original painting. Though I didn’t have the perfect assortment of colors, I knew that I would be able to mix them in order to get the colors I wanted.
I then worked on building up the painting itself. I worked with the gouache in layers, starting out by applying a thin layer to each section of the sketch. This first layer was mostly about blocking in the colors. I then let that dry, and added another layer on top. In the second layer, I focused on the shadows. While working on this painting, I continued to cross reference my painting with the original, observing where the colors and shadows were placed and trying my best to replicate that.
This is where I deviated from a typical study. Since the shirt consisted of such a large empty block of color, I thought it was the perfect place to add in a pattern. Using one of the patterns from Nathalie’s “ATC Mixup Stencil” and some light pink acrylic paint on a makeup sponge, I applied a pattern across the surface of the shirt. I then went in with a Prismacolor colored pencil and started to add lines to the piece, defining some of the areas that I lost while using the paint.
At this point, I wanted to add some subtle texture to the background, so I used Nathalie’s “Empire Triangle” and a black ink pad to create a pattern over the dark green color. Since the background was almost black, there wasn’t a lot of contrast between the pattern and the background, which is exactly the kind of subtlety I was looking for.
Finally, I added a quote to my page with a white gel pen. This quote seemed fitting considering the subject of the page, and it was a nice reminder to myself that everyone goes through struggles with their artwork, but that’s just part of the process!
I hope you enjoyed following along with the process of creating this page and that you consider doing a master study of your own! They’re a great way to learn and grow as an artist.
Thank you Jordan – wonderful idea to practice by copying a master and then putting your stamp (or stencil lol) on it. Looks awesome!!!
could not live in any one part with complete ease.”
– Suman Pokhrel
I added some leftover greens and yellow acrylic paints to the background, then brayered white acrylic paint over it. I used a pencil to scribble some neighborhood names into the still wet paint, layered my Art Deco Summit stencil over and used a cosmetic sponge and teal acrylic paint over it. The scribbles are still showing and I love the texture.
I added the different almanac pieces (from the sold out 2022 Artist Almanac Calendar) which were taken from a big painting I once made about Jersey City. Some of the images are of buildings or sights that either do not exist anymore or have changed significantly over the last couple of years since I painted the original painting, titled 99 Cent Dream.
My Artful Adventures with Henri Matisse online workshop begins next week and we are excited to invite you to the class! We’ll be looking at one of my all time favorite artists for inspiration this time – the amazing Henri Matisse. His use of color, his love of combining different patterns, his unique paper cut outs, and more will all be explored.
Still wondering if an Artful Adventure is right for you? Here are what some students have said in the past about some of my other Artful Adventures:
If this sounds like what you’ve been looking for, join us and learn how to take some Matisse inspired techniques and style into your own artwork too. Right now we have an Early Bird sale for just $39 through September 29, when the workshop begins! Learn more and sign up.
I included in this art journal spread one of the Artist Almanac Calendar pages featuring my Two Tallest painting of both the Jersey City and New York City skylines. Although the calendar and original painting are no longer available, you can still pick up a giclee print of the work and enjoy the scene :)
The background here was just some loose layering of leftover acrylic paints with a brayer. Then I used a pencil into the wet paint to create some intersecting scribbles. I used the same colors again to fill in some of those shapes that appeared, with a brush and with a finger- it was a fun and freeing to play.
“The truth of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.” – David Bowie
Hello from my Creative Squad. Today we have a post from Robin Seiz who is sharing her beautiful and final project with us today! We have been so lucky to have Robin with us on the Squad and have always appreciated her thoughtful takes on our themes and also her skill at combining colors and elements within her compositions. She will be missed and we wish her all the best as she continues on her art journey!
Today she shares a repurposed bag project with us, using my Star Struck, Central Ave, Grove Street, and Park Blvd stencils and our theme: Favorite Art – My Way – Look at a favorite work of art and create something inspired by it, drawing from the colors, shapes, subject matter, feeling etc. that strikes you most when you look at it.
Hello friends. This month’s theme is Favorite Art – My Way. My partner gave me a painting on canvas for an engagement present. It’s a realistic painting of glass jars in the most beautiful shades of blue. By far, it’s my most favorite piece of art in our home. This painting was what I thought about when I started this project. While I didn’t use shades of blue, I did start with teal as the basis for my project this month.
My studio is being renovated, as is much of our home. I have a tiny little space right now to create with most of my supplies packed up in boxes in the basement, so using recycled materials seems to make sense right now. I recently got a shipment of art supplies in glassine bags and decided to use one of those bags for my substrate. This finished bag will make a terrific hostess gift bag.
Since the glassine bags are quite shiny and smooth, I started by adding a layer of white gesso to give it some tooth. Once the gesso was on, I realized the teal paint would look better on a black background; so I put down a layer of black gesso. (One of the things I love about mixed media is more layers often make the piece more interesting).
Next I drew a butterfly on a post-it note and cut it out. Once I was satisfied with it, I cut out 8 more butterflies. I placed these down on the black glassine to act as masks before I put down Nathalie’s Star Struck stencil. I used Golden Teal paint with a sponge and “pounced” the paint through the stencil. I removed the stencil and the masks which left black butterflies on the page. I thought I wanted to make the butterflies stand out, so I used a white Posca Pen to outline each butterfly.
I wanted some “Bling” on the page. With a small paint brush, I applied gold gesso to the dots in the Star Struck stencil. See the lower left bottom corner to see how I filled in the gold dots.
Next I used Natalie’s Grove Street stencil, Central Ave Stencil, and Park Blvd stencil and a makeup sponge to lay down a design on each butterfly.
After the designs were on each butterfly, I realized I didn’t like the white outline, so I covered it up with gold paint and then applied a black micron #8 to outline the gold providing more depth to the butterflies.
Thank you Robin for this fun project idea that could be used to repurpose lots of different types of bags! Also thank you for participating in the Creative Squad for the past 2 years – it has been a pleasure working with you!
Give it a try: you can find all my Stencils in my Online Shop and in addition to her upcycled glassine bag, here are some of the supplies Robin used:
Looking for more projects? Follow the Creative Squad on Instagram here.
Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.
Lots of House pictures this month – as we are still working on a lot of stuff. Here is the bathroom floor – pretty much the only nice thing about our main bathroom which is a Frankenstein of DIY throughout the decades …and believe me…it is not good and not shown are the holes in the floor that I patched temporarily. I love the pattern though – I always think about which stamps I should take to recreate it – and maybe I should just tackle this ;)
And yes there are still boxes – but I am happy to report that they are now finally unpacked. Mingus was caught like this judging the mess …it was all fun for him on the ladder until he decided to jump down and the ladder tumbled …then it was a scaredy cat for a little bit …but don’t think he learned from this ;)
(no cats, windows, floors or else were harmed in the cat flight)
We finally got our wonderful home commission artwork by Natalya Khorover back from the framer and now it hangs in our dining room. I loooveee it.
Pretzel loves the Fainting Sofa
Always love this row of houses downtown! The iron work is so beautiful.
Wallpaper hung, walls painted and trim painting in progress.
I love our floors- it is simple but beautiful! I am actually thinking of using the border pattern for the bathroom when we redo it next year or so. Imagine a black tile border like the darker wood and the rest in white tiles …still adding to my little idea board.
In the bathroom which will not be touched as long as we are in the house is this contraption which I think I never showed you. It is actually a common thing in old bathrooms on the east coast still – but we had no clue what it was when we bough the house, until we ran the water in the bathtub and we couldn’t figure out how to drain the water LOL. It is a Standing Waste and Drain Tub Tower – pull on the top or push it down …mystery solved.
Speaking of gorgeous floors, we had dinner at our friend’s house which is close by and look at this gorgeous pattern on the floor.
And I may have serious radiator envy …it is a thing …trust me.
They also still had this crazy antique breaker box in the hallway …
This made me laugh hard at our local music store
I leave you with a little wavy glass love – the reflections of our 130 year old window glass are just my favorite thing.
Hope you enjoyed this stroll- until next month! See you
I have never seen a standing tub tower and I’ve lived in the north east my whole life. Although I also haven’t been in many older homes.
I love all the natural light in your studio. As always, thanks for the neighborhood stroll pics. It encourages me to see my own hood differently.
I had the opportunity to be a guest on Jana’s podcast, Artistically You the other week and am happy to share that with you today. We chatted about my style of artwork, combining architecture and other mixed media elements, my workshops, artistic inspiration and more.
Comments (1)
Sue Clarke
| #
He looks like a party animal that is part lizard plus???
Reply