A sneak peek off the painting table via my insta

Waiting for the drying prior to the wax layer #mixedmedia #mixedmediaart #mixedmediagirls

A photo posted by Dena Ann (@denadraws) on Oct 6, 2015 at 10:40am PDT

Inktober: let's look at the book

Let's take a closer peek at my #inktober experiement: I have a new a3 moleskine sketchbook and for the first time ever I am making good use of the pocket. I'm considering building a class around this process, depending on the outcome and if I think it has worked or not.

#inktober : I am drawing 10 min a day super crude on scrap paper in ink. I have a blank a3 #moleskine which I will use as an artists book which must incorporate all the ink drawings however bad. ( I think : rules were made to be made and broken.) I will post project photos as this develops. #drawing #sketchbook #workbook

A photo posted by Dena Ann (@denadraws) on Oct 4, 2015 at 10:57am PDT

Summer of Color - Blue Blue and Green

I'm participating in Summer of Color for the first time  - it's a huge challenge, run by Kristin Van Valkenburgh at Twinkle Twinkle.  Every week there's a very loosely defined color palette.

For this week's challenge I used Pthalo blue red shade, Utrecht paint Aquamarine (a lightened Pt. Blue-green it seems) and to complicate things a bit Hooker's Green hue. A little gesso, a little white, and inktense pencils, in Chrome green and indigo. (which I think match in with the hooker's green and the blue pretty well.) Also I think green gelly roll pen which near-matched the aquamarine for some reason..

I did a journal spread in a smaller Moleskine that I've been keeping. I think my secondary challenge with these palettes is to loosen up and doodle into my work more - I want to get a bit more raw here. I like the way this one worked out.

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don't forget, you still have a couple of days to sign up for my fun summer class at Uthrive!

A little behind in being a good blog buddy

Your comments are making me so happy - I hope that every visitor is enjoying him or her self, and that there's at least a little useful information tucked away here for everybody.

I'm so behind on blog visiting! I'll make a point of doing some tonight.

Here's a little fast fun in watercolor, inktense and graphtint pencils, and a brush. On Fabriano Studio Hot press - which is like bristol that doesn't suck for wet media. Lovely!

 One of my less frustrating moments.

Doodling away

Journal Page - The Difficult

I got out the gelli plate the other night - monotype with a press is my "thing" - years ago I had an artist residency at MN book arts for my monotype work.  It's completely different without a press, but I think I'm going to enjoy wrestling with this little silicone blob until I like the results.

 Her crown and dress are some very subtle mossy gelli printed papers. Collage, watercolor, stamping, drawing - other than the water color washes almost all the paint is applied with a tsukineko fantastix foam stick. I'm still crazy for those things.  I should keep a running list of supplies I find "worth it."

Mixed Media on Loose Fabriano Watercolor

I am trying not to go ape and throw poo be bummed about YET MORE SNOW. Enough. Any time now.

Well, even if I'm kept indoors at least I can play. This is like the rainy day activity that never ends.

In GOOD news, it is the anniversary of Paint Party Friday! PPF has introduced me to many talented and friendly bloggers/artists, and it's one of those nice blog parties that makes a self-employed freelancer feel just that tiniest bit less like a cave dwelling hermit. YAY PPF. Here's to many many more!

Getting messy again....gelatos and inktense journal pages

Peace of mind? Really? How journal schmournally. It's a well-trod sentiment. But peeps, my dear peeps, how I really really could use some in my life this week.

This page started with a hand stamp I carved. I call the pattern "cairn" - you can't really see a lot of evidence of it here, but I'll be showing it off a lot.  I'm LOVING carving my own stamps as a starting point - it's a great way to lay down a bunch of information onto that intimidating white page, and it's a nice way to keep the image vocabulary your own.

The flowers are collaged deco paper, though. I thought they went so nicely with the background I worked up with plenty of gelatos dripping. They do tend to migrate down the page in a different way from watercolors, it's hard to explain but you'll notice the difference if you try both.

Used inktense, gesso, posca, acrylic pen and ink, and lots of prismacolor here. It's nice to get messy again and get lot of deep saturated color.

New Print: Great Escape

New Shop Stuff:  Print!

Last night was one of those strange nights of total artistic failure and then a modicum of success when you remember to take a deep breath and switch directions.  I was working on something very intuitive, loose and messy, watching this image parade through variation after variation, none of them exactly what I wanted.

I wound up covering everything with gesso and paper. Working time: 9 hours.  

Sometimes them's just the breaks as they say.

So - long after I probably should have gone to sleep - I popped open one of my myriad 9x9 journals, and started drawing. 

It's everything the other isn't. Tight, straightforward, bright, flat, logical.  And it came on quickly and happily. Working time, about 2 or 3 hours. I didn't count too carefully.

Print is available here - text can be customized somewhat, on request.

...And the original image - mixed media painting @ paperyum

Here is the original image. I worked back into it and you'll see some subtle differences.  It's great fun layering all the papers and seeing what emerges in the end - while a lot of the first layer gets covered, bits of it come through.

6x12, acrylic, inktense pencils, decorative papers, stenciling, vintage book pages, stamping.

Print and Process - using the epson for hand-altered art variations

 

Here's one of my first prints - a mini print on a four inch MDF panel with rounded corners and hand-aged edges. Sweet huh?

Even sweeter is the way she came to be.  In this case, the evolution is right to left.

On the right, my original. Gouache and collage on a canvas, 6x8.  I know I want "more" in this image, it's not a finished piece, but if I had a dime for every time I added "more" to something I like and killed it, I would be a rich lady.  Now, with the epson and my stash of Somerset Velvet papers, I can experiment with much less potential artistic fallout. Whee!

In the middle: a hand altered print. This is a test print that misfired actually, cutting off part of the image. Waste not want not. I went back into her with more collage, more acrylics, intensifying and brightening -  and some stamping, even.

 (I'm such a hypocrite, the wide world of stamps opens before me, yay.)

Last, to the left is the mini print you see above.  The color fidelity is pretty good - I'm actually not a huge stickler for that, as long as it looks good and consistent among the final print outputs.  The only alteration here is a little distress ink aging and some light sealing. My original lives on to play another day and another way - let's see where else she goes!  

 Anyone else use their printer this way, not quite digital art and not purely analog art either? Comments are always welcome below!