House Paint

There wasn't a post here yesterday and it might be a week before another one- I'll be working in house paint for a while!

#184 Kah Tai Monotype

Acrylic monotype with "rice" paper and ink. 10" x 8".

#183 Monoprint Field

I made an acrylic monotype by painting onto a transparency copier sheet, set it on an bevelled plexiglass sheet, and ran it through the press.  It was fairly abstract, so I painted in the sky and tinted here are there, adding some torn rice paper.  8" X 10".

#182 Stalking the Wild Photographer

through multiple panes of glass, at Lake Quinault last Fall.  This is the image straight from the camera.  Normally I would post a painting or drawing, but my art time today was spent experimenting further with monotypes.  They look like experiments, too!

#181 Discovery Bay, Day 2

Not too much is different from yesterday's version- I added a little more paint here and there.  This is about 11" x 17"... mixed media on paper.

#180 Discovery Bay (in progress)

This is a studio mixed media painting based on a plein air done last summer.  It's bigger than my recent paintings- about 10" x 18".  I don't think it's done, but had to stop to think about it, and to go buy more bananas.

#179 4th and Pine

An alley near 4th and Pine Street, in Port Angeles.  I drove there under gathering dark clouds, with rain forecast, and then the clouds went away!  They came back for the ride home, but the painting was in the bag.  Mixed media on paper- about 11" x 11".

BTW, I rephoto'd this image in better light the next morning and reposted.

#178 March Fields

This was done on location, near McCombs Nursery in Sequim, on a cool, breezy, and beautiful March day. It was painted with acrylics on paper, and with Inktense pencils.  I'm finding that the ink helps saturate the colors, plus I get to draw.

#177 Possible Doggies for Mural

First digital doggie draft for a pet memorial mural. 

Alliteration- is it great or what.

#176 Monotype Detail with Inks

Warning: acrylic monotype nerdiness follows...

In working with acrylic monotypes, I have recently tried printing with open acrylics onto: dry printmaking paper /  hand burnished; wet printmaking paper / hand burnished; wet printmaking paper run through a press; hand burnished dried printmaking paper that had been previously wet and blotted to remove the paper sizing.  And then to add some definition and value definition, I have tried ink pens, acrylic washes, and colored ink on the print.

What you see above is my favorite variation so far: open acrylics hand burnished onto dry paper (doesn't  seem to matter if it has been soaked and blotted first), with colored ink (but not black).  The open acrylics blend too much on wet paper, and acrylic washes can add an unpleasant sheen. Black ink seems to not play well with others, but maybe someone else can get it to do so!  Also, maybe someone could carefully use transparent primary color acrylics in thin washes- I used non-transparent colors.

#175 Detail of Monotype

I'm still experimenting with acrylic monotypes.  This is a detail of one that was made by soaking and blotting printmaking paper and allowing it to dry, then laying the paper on top of a painted glass sheet and hand burnishing it.  I used open acrylics, but had to work fast.  The orange lines on the right are from an ink pen.  It has possibilities...

#174 Acrylic Montotype

I was playing around with acrylics on a plastic board, and made a monotype by rolling the back of damp printmaking paper that I periodically set on the plate.  Later ink and more paint was added.  The problem, though, was that over time the damp paper noticeably shrank, and the plate started to print outside the original border.  I tried to wipe it off and it was a mess, so... if you try this at home, keep the paper either damp or dry the whole time!

#173 Cat for Mural

I'm designing a mural for a pet charity, and this is the first version of a cat that could be in it, if it gets approved. It might be a different color or have fluffy fur.

#172 Plate of Chard

A plate with red chard- some of it done on paper.

#171 Greens

A digital garden... next time I will use a bigger canvas size, to make it easier to finesse the shapes and to print it out larger than 2" x 3".

#170 Bay House

This is a composite of several local scenes.  Acrylic on 6" x 6" panel.

#169 Madrona Sketch

It's a simple digital sketch using Wacom's Bamboo pad and stylus, but it has the feeling of the day, I think.  I did this looking out a window, and now want to try a complete plein air. It will be interesting to see how long the battery will last out in the wild.

#168 New Toy

I'm learning to use a pressure-sensitive stylus... This sketch is not very accurate!

#167 Storm King Study

This was the first painting I did yesterday at Lake Crescent- sort of a study for the second one.  Today I've been moving dirt around, instead of paint.  Acrylic on 6" x 6" panel.

#166 Storm King

This is Storm King Mountain, painted from the west end of Lake Crescent, ONP.  The scene is kind of pale, because everything in it is, well, across the lake!  Acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10".

#165 Garden Path

I have to admit to... making this scene up!  I wanted to use lots of color. It was fun. Acrylic on 6" x 6" panel.

#164 Aldwell Wash

I painted this at the site of old Lake Aldwell, and it was a bit blah.  So in the studio I took a big brush and charged up the color - now it looks more like how it felt.  Acrylic on 6" x 6" panel.

#163 Big Cloud

Clouds on the Salish Sea... acrylic on 6" x 6" panel.

#162 Blyn Light

It probably looks as if I've been to the Gauguin exhibit in Seattle, but I haven't yet seen it.  (This was reposted because the first image was much darker than the original - sorry about that.)  Acrylic on panel, 6" x 6".

#161 Carved Elephant Returns

Just a quick little elephant on a busy day... acrylic on 7" x 5" panel.

#160 Old Lake Aldwell

It was difficult to get these colors to match the original, but this is close.  Yesterday was my first plein air painting in Washington this year!  We went to the site of what used to be Lake Aldwell, but now this particular spot is a side channel of the Elwha River.  Acrylic on panel, 6" x 6".  The traditional acrylics seemed to work well on a cool (43F) day outside.

#159 Brass Coffee Pot

A still life, for something completely different!  Acrylic on 5" x 5" panel.