Overcome the Fear - Rock the Underpainting

When I started out painting and art journaling, my greatest fear was addressing the dreaded "blank" page or canvas! How do I start??? Now that I've been painting for years, I've learned to be BOLD and just throw whatever color interests me at the moment down on the canvas or paper surface to give a running start to the creative process... This exercise is especially helpful when I have a few minutes to spare and want to do something creative, but don't want to get into a whole painting. It's also a great thing to do with left over paint! Here are some underpaintings in my studio right now:

The underpaintings above are oil paint on canvas (from a canvas pad), collage 

and NeoColor II water soluble oil pastel on canvas, and collage

 on acrylic wash (from left-over paint) on watercolor paper.

Since I'm an abstract painter, my underpaintings are just about getting color down, collage and mark making like the one below. Generally, I use the colors of an underpainting as a guide for the colors I paint or glaze over top, however, traditional underpaintings typically use one color; grey, sienna, red iron oxide, sepia, yellow ocher, and others.

NeoColor II water soluble oil pastel on watercolor paper. 

Salt was added while the pastel was wet to give the spotted effect.

There are some great resources available for free online about techniques for underpainting, such as this blog post from Jerry's Artarama HERE and a YouTube video from The World of Art HERE. A few of my favorite examples of underpainting in books are the write up about artist Juan de la Cruz Machicado in Painter's Wild Workshop by Lynn Leon Loscutoff and the "From Drawing to Painting" chapter of Bill Creevy's The Oil Painting Book. Don't worry that the references speak about oil painting, the same techniques can be used for acrylic painting and other mediums, too.

I encourage you to pick up a brush with left over paint or water soluble oil pastel crayons the next time you have a few minutes to spare and give underpainting a try! Use it to add layers and interest to your artwork. Please share your experiences trying this technique in the comments below.

Happy Arting!  Tristina :D

Colorful Works in Progress & Leftover Paint Projects

WORKS  IN  PROGRESS

I am so inspired by the latest Cloth Paper Scissors magazine to CREATE! Little did I know the choice to use a 4 pack of Michael's 6x6 canvases for my latest multi-media creations would be perfect for the local Utrecht store's upcoming 6x6 challenge / show that I found out about today! Ahh, FATE. :) The canvases are not done, but here's a sneek peek:

The raised surface at the tops of these canvases are a layer of Golden Light Molding Paste into which I impressed various circle shapes from bottle tops to straws. After the molding paste was dry (I left it overnight), I used Caran D'Ache NeoColor II water soluable wax crayons to scribble areas of color onto the canvas and paste surfaces. Using a damp to wet soft paint brush, I activated the water soluable pigments and allowed them to slosh and mingle with one another. Note: I did rinse off my brush between colors and started with the light colors...working my way to the darker colors, so as not to create mud. Below is an example of a canvas where the top part has had water brushed on it and the bottom portion has not:

Next, I took various colors of Derwent Inktense water soluable pencils and followed around the grooves of the circles that I had made in the molding paste. After, I again used water and a brush to run over the pencil pigment which released their brilliant color into the grooves of the circles. I left all to dry overnight. The following day, I used Liquitex Basics Acrylic Paints to paint the sides of the canvases so that the colors on the sides would match the color swatch areas on the top of the canvases. The sides of the paintings dried in about an hour, after which I used bubble wrap, the plastic covering for oranges and a plastic pipe to put the additional markings on the top of the dried paintings using acrylic paints.

LEFTOVER  PAINT  PROJECTS

I can't stand to waste paint! Use every last drop of pigment SOMEWHERE is my motto!!! As I am painting and finish with an acrylic paint color, if there is paint left, I like to use it on paper and canvas that I make sure to have laying around my work area. Recently I had 2 journals, a wet/dry media paper pad and an unstretched canvas pad available to use on my worktable. 

To create quick paper and canvas pad backgrounds, I get my brush sopping wet, pick up some of the leftover acrylic paint and swipe it across the surface in an up and down and side to side motion, adding more water if I feel necessary to get all the pigment out of the brush. These create great, quick backgrounds to put other leftover paint on such as in these pages:

Another technique after adding the wet, sloshy paint to your paper or canvas pad is to press your brush full of water and paint along the top or side of a page and tilt the page up to get the colors to run. I recommend you put paper towels under the edge of your surface to catch the running paint. Remember, you can do the slosh and tilting in multiple directions for even more fun. Here are some examples:

This is on unmounted canvas so that I can sew through it!

And last, below is the beginning of a multi-media painting after using the dripping paint technique on paper that I had already used as a background when painting other small elements, leaving masking shapes behind  that add interest and bold colors to the back story:

If you have any questions about the above painting techniques, just leave me a comment below...

Enjoy a CREATIVE week!  Tristina :D