The Cry of My Heart



Joy Journal March 2013

 This page evolved over several days. Following the prompts by Amanda Jolley on her Joy Journal Project for March, I started with some quiet time.  Just because it looks like I'm not doing anything, there is usually much going on inside. Purposely quieting myself helped me realize that I distract or mask my chronic physical pain with many distractions.  Music, reading, tv, games on my Kindle Fire, etc.
There is other pain too. We all have it.  I poured out my heart when I came to my journal pages, writing with a red pen.  I tested the ink to see if it would bleed when wet.  It did.  But there is a strong ghost of that written purge lingering under the layers I added.

The writing sat on that page.  Just for my eyes. I followed Amanda's suggestions to add spatters of paint and veils of gesso.  Another day goes by.  I'm not even thinking about the journal and I remember the words of a worship song - "It is the cry of my heart to follow You."  That is what I had poured out.  The cry of my heart.   Another day I came across a Bible verse that put things in perspective and pointing me to the Hope of my heart.    Now I had the heart to continue with the page.  I added glazes of sheer paint and sprayed thinned acrylic ink.  A bleeding heart was drawn with the dropper from a bottle of Liquitex Acrylic Ink.   Scrapbook papers were used for the collage. I glazed layers of paint on a strip, then stamped the words with StazOn Ink.  After tearing the edges, I distressed them with pastel pencils.  The silhouette started as a tracing from an illustration.  I transferred it to scrapbook paper and cut it out.  

Then I added Inka Gold Metallic Rub (a bees wax product). It can be quite sheer but adds a great shine. On the bottom image, the figure looks almost solid in color, but that is the effect of the metallic reflection from that angle.

The page was finished with a few more touches with the pastel pencils, some journaling around the figure using a Pitt Pen, and a bit more sprayed ink.

GPP Crusade No. 52: Seasonal Wardrobe

Cover art on Strathmore Visual Journal

 This month Michelle Ward challenged Green Pepper Street Team participants to share seasonal "wardrobe" changes in our art.  Do I change my color palette with the change of the seasons? 
How does the changing of the seasons affect my art?

I tend to work with a limited color palette and usually prefer saturated colors.  But looking back at the past winter months I see that I played a lot with softer colors, especially aqua.  Maybe a desire to be at a warm beach during the long cold winter was influencing me.

Lately, I've been experimenting with bright green.  Today's project was to embellish the covers of a Strathmore Visual Journal.  They have a tough, shiny cover that I sanded to give more tooth for the paint.  Then I applied gesso that I distressed with waxed paper.  While the gesso was wet, I lay a piece of waxed paper on the surface and lifted it off.  The gesso dried with an irregular texture.
Next, I painted a thin layer of lime green paint on the surface and dabbed some off with damp cheese cloth.

The special seasonal touch to this cover came from the leaf masks. A short storm left bunches of leaves and twigs on the ground yesterday. I picked up a few and pressed them over night.
I laid the leaves on the covers and sprayed a couple colors of diluted Liquitex Acrylic Ink.

I really like the results of this project so far and have started a similar project on canvas.

This crusade has me thinking about the influence the seasons have on my work and I can use that awareness.
 When I get stuck for inspiration, I can let the unique qualities of the season spark ideas.  The bright green that I'm working in seemed too intense when the ground was covered with snow.  But now the outdoors is bursting with green and it just seems natural to be working with it.

Triple Galaxy Painting

Painting image taken Saturday under partly sunny skies.

 Do you ever wonder when enough is enough on a painting?  I have found that taking a quick digital image often helps me see the weaknesses in a painting.  There have been times when I thought I was done and was preparing my images to post a blog entry when I saw flaws that I knew I couldn't live with. Back to the easel...

Saturday was a good day to go outside and spatter paint.

 This is a painting I started several months ago and set aside while I contemplated what else to do with it.  It began with gesso resist monoprints and layers of blue-violet and red-violet.

This past week I added glazes of transparent color to give the painting more depth.  Some were sprayed on with a mister bottle and some were dry brushed on.  I added a bit of spattered gesso.  More glazes were added, but I knew I needed to put more energy onto the canvas.  That can get messy.

Fortunately the weather was calm and mild this past Saturday.  I laid the canvas board on the ground and shielded some of the areas with torn paper and the canvas circles you see on the above image.  Then I aggressively spattered gesso across the painting.  I followed that with some spritzes of glaze color.

Detail from the painting.

I liked the way the canvas appeared.  I like the digital images even better.

Inside my house is another matter.  The lighting is diffused, and the white areas are not distinct like they are on the digital imagery. The painting seemed dark and didn't have the visual movement that I could see outdoors.

This morning I put a thin layer of gloss medium/varnish on the painting.  That helps bring out the whites and gives the painting a bit more depth.  I hesitated to take this step because I wasn't sure I was done adding glaze layers.  The gloss layer isolates any new layers from the previous ones and any subsequent painting will go down differently.

It's time to step back and wait.   Again.

GPP Crusade No. 43: Text Messaging

The latest challenge by Michelle Ward for the GPP Crusade gave me the opportunity to use ephemera I saved from the office.
As in the last crusade, I started with a page previously monoprinted from an earlier crusade. I softened the color with a wash of gesso. I tore strips from security envelopes that had been washed with acrylic ink.

When I decided some stenciled lettering would be nice, the stencil I grabbed had bumps on the back. It was designed for tracing. So I just flipped it and stenciled with a dry brush as usual. This reversed the letters, but I was just going for the color and pattern. I think having the letters reversed worked to adantage in this case.


We get a regular stream of URGENT NOTICE junk mail at the office.
This page gave me an opportunity to vent a bit with my journaling. People are very brazen with this phrase to use scare tactics to urge you to buy goods and services you don't need.

GPP Crusade No. 42: Strip Ease

Visit the official crusade blog for Michelle Ward's instructions for this month's challenge. I decided to use some left-overs to create my journal page.





It was fun adding layers to the already painted page. It didn't take long to complete.

While writing on the page with a Sakura Souffle Pen, I enjoyed the contrast of white against the saturated colors on the page.

The tissue paper strips aren't obvious as strips, but they added a lot to this page. When I added the bits of orange monoprints, I started to see the hint of flowers. So I took a small paint brush and added the outlines with Liquitex Acrylic Ink.

This page encouraged me to add layers to more of my painted pages.

GPP Crusade No. 41 - More Grid Work

I had extra room in my journal after mounting previously posted grids. I decided to make a grid directly on the painted page of my journal. First I divided the page using Michelle Ward's excellent instructions found on the GPP Crusade post. I painted over the lines with acrylic ink.
This time I grabbed a map from my ephemera stash and punched circles featuring places in Iowa that are significant to me (where I was born, lived, schooled, art shows). After adhering the circles to the grid, I added a bit of journaling.

This was created on cardstock and I used squares left over from my first grid project. I decided to keep the grid minimal and set it up as an abstract art piece. Then I mounted the artwork in my journal.
Making grids could become addictive!

Liquitex Acrylic Ink Landscape

Last week I was inspired to paint something for my wonderful husband as his birthday gift. The scene was inspired by photos I shot at a local park, but it came mostly from my imagination.

Earlier in that day I listened to water colorist, Sterling Edwards on a webinar. That influenced my decision to paint a landscape with water color techniques. I have been experimenting with Liquitex Acrylic Inks and decided to use them. I also used a bit of Golden Fluid Acrylic Titatium White since I don't have white ink.

The white paint was used to make tints for the highlights. The majority of white on the painting is the white paper. Leaving the whites unpainted was one of the techniques that Sterling Edwards talked about. It was a good reminder for me since I don't usually remember to do that.

Before framing the painting, I went to Staples and got a half-scale copy made on photographic paper. I used the print to make Hubby's birthday card. Happily, he was thrilled with both. The painting went right up on the wall. Need I say more.

Experiments & Faces

This is what happens when I experiment with no expectations...
I've been reading a book, DYNAMIC ACRYLICS by Soraya French. The author likes to use acrylic ink, often as the underpainting. I picked up a bottle of Liquitex Burnt Sienna Acrylic Ink. There's a dropper built into the cap. Wonderful. I applied the ink with the dropper on watercolor paper - dry, wet into wet, sprayed with water, alcohol, etc. Then I added Liquitex Soft Body paint - Ultramarine. More ink. Then I decided I needed a little black. That's when I saw a face. So I dipped a brush into the jar of black soft body paint & laid calligraphic strokes on the paper to bring out the face I "saw". I came back to the page later & decided it needed a bit of highlight, so I added a few strokes of yellow ochre. Then I bordered the page with strokes of black.

Another day, another experiment. I've been learning to paint faces. In Sharon Tomlinson's on-line class, we used Folk Art craft paints which has a nice generic skintone color. But Sharon also showed us an easy mix to create flesh tones.
This week I got out my set of Golden OPEN Acrylic paint to experiment with creating flesh tones. I was very happy with the results that came from mixing titatium white, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson and cobalt blue. Ultramarine blue also works, but has a higher tinting strength than cobalt blue, so be careful to not add too much!
Well, I had the paint mixtures on my palette and dabs of the color recorded in my paint reference journal... so how about making a face. I had about 20 minutes available, so I grabbed a miniature watercolor tablet (3.5 x 4.75 inches), quickly sketched an outline & features, then applied paint with a 3/8 inch angular flat brush.
Have you ever used Golden OPEN Paints? They are luscious & creamy & so blendable!

This little study was painted very loosely. ALL of it was painted with that relatively large brush. The angle makes it possible to paint the smallest details when using a superb paint like Golden OPEN. (No, I am not getting any reimbursement for all this gushing.)
I definitely will be using this paint for more faces.

One last thing. If you want to take a fun on-line class, sign up with Sharon Tomlinson. She gives great feedback and is really fun. Sharon is offering a new class that will start this month using non-traditional colors for faces. Check it out!