Watercolor Pages - Goog

This Monday SUCKED. I mean, it just all-around was yuck-o-rama. 

Here is what I worked on, art-wise. I saw this great magazine article about this journal this chick keeps (I have no idea what her name is, if I find out, I'll let you know) and with a little prodding from Suzi, I decided to try it. Got a new journal - Strathmore Mixed Media XL. Not good for watercolors, as I learned on Monday.

Not only did the pages warp and buckle, the paints don't act like they're supposed to on NON watercolor paper. They just don't. Sure, you can watercolor in your journal if you really want to, but the paints just sort of soak into the paper and don't mix and blend like they're supposed to. Still, I pressed on - we're just talking background, first layer, type of stuff. It might still be just fine.

I tried a different type of paper. My beloved Stonehenge. But I didn't like how wide the (special, $8 artist low-tack) tape was that I was using. So I tried some thinner tape that I have for quilting. And I like the size of the lines a LOT better. However, it didn't quite pull away from the paper like I'd hoped.

This was the best side of the day. However, it is the reverse of the one above and ended up in the trash. Sigh.

Here was my setup - all the watercolors I could find (OK, I actually have another set or two...).

I'm not giving up on this, I'm totally determined to figure it out! Maybe I'll go back and figure out who the artist is and she can help me!! Stay tuned...

Missing YSM...Goog

OK, so - remember when we first started this thing? It was just me, Kelly, and Ajae, making shit, posting it, crap like that. Then Suzi suggested we do live chats, and even that was fun for a while. But then people started to make it complicated. "Let's have a theme!" they said. "Let's all work on the same stuff!" they said. "Let's tell everyone about it the week before so they can work on it, too!" they said. And still, for a while, we did it and it was OK. Not quite the same as it had been, but still OK. Then it started to feel like a chore. Something that had to get done instead of something fun to work on. And then I went back to college (yes, again) and things got more complicated.

I've decided I'm going to talk Kelly and Ajae BACK into You Suck Monday, but we're gonna have to do it old school. No "announcing" what we're working on beforehand. No "topics", no group stuff unless we all want to. Monday is STILL a sucky day, and I still need my day to suck.

I AM working on something new today, and I'll show you when I have it all worked on and stuff. OK? OK.

Goog - InkTense 4/23/12

So, I've been wanting to get some different InkTense colors since I don't really have any good portrait ones and portraits are what I draw most of the time. Twice I've been to Blick's and gathered all the ones I wanted and then put them back. But the peeps decided they wanted to do InkTense for YSM, so here we are.

First just graphite:

A little shading:

Since I don't have any portrait colors, I just went with sun yellow and tangerine:

Here I added a little baked earth to the face, apple green for the background. The more I worked with her, the more I liked her, which is TOTALLY unlike me!

I used bark for her hair, which is a really cool kind of purply brown, and leaf green for her shirt. Then I went to bed because I sort of liked her and I felt like I must have been punchy for that to be true.

After she waited all night, she STILL wasn't horrible! All I did was add a little to her background and lips...

 Then I redefined her features a little with more graphite, and then Kelly texted me a picture of her girl and I realized that I hadn't colored her eyes, so I did. The colors kind of leaked out of their pencil lines and I'm absolutely fine with it! Normally I'm much more of a control freak than that. What's up with me?!?

Next I want to get real portrait colors and try the InkTense on canvas. Maybe a new journal bag.

Goog - Brain Dead Journaling 4/16/12

Kelly led us through creating a page, and I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out!

Goog - 4/9/12 Make Your Own Gesso

All right, it's simply white glue, water, and baby powder. It smells pretty good, but other than that, it's crap.

It's SUPER thick, but not in a paste-y kind of way. Sort of like it's dry in the middle and just covered with something wet. That doesn't make any sense, but it's how it seems. Like you have to "punch" through to get it on the brush, and then when you brush it on something you have to push really hard to get it on the substrate.

I tried it first on book paper, just so see how it reacted to paper. It was OK, it went on fine, but it's a very strange texture. Write on it was like writing on sandpaper - it worked, but if you were to blow on it the pencil lines it comes off because it's mostly just dust.

I painted her with watercolors and it was HORRIBLE. The "gesso" isn't permanent because I used elmer's glue so the water kept activating it and making a big, smeary mess.

This was through a stencil, obviously. on Stonehenge printmaking paper. The gesso activated the alcohol inks that were on the stencil, which surprised me because alcohol inks are permanent, but that's why it's blue.

Theoretically I was going to do a gesso resist, but it was REALLY thick, and it didn't resist AT ALL. Yuck.

The prismacolors over it were horrible, also. Trying to blend them made the stuff flake off in chunks.

Theoretically, I was going to show you the same techniques using store-bought gesso and my gesso. I really, really, REALLY wanted my gesso to work! But since it didn't, here is a couple of the same techniques with Liquitex gesso.

This is the gesso over book paper. The prismacolors still don't work very well, but it's a MILLION times better than the stuff I made. It's a lot thinner, dries practically instantly, held on to the graphite, and even let me erase a little when I tried it.

This is on Stonehenge printmaking paper, through a different stencil. This is a resist. Gesso first, through the stencil, then paint, then a little water, then rubbed with a towel and voila! It came out pretty cool.

So, the verdict is: homemade gesso is fine if you want to add texture, but not so much just for surface prep. Don't use Elmer's glue because it's not permanent. For me? I hate all gesso and just use plain white paint when I have a need for covering things up! 

Goog - Joint Compound, 4/2/12

So, we were trying to find some YouTube videos we'd seen of someone using joint compound in a syringe to make texture. We failed. But, I did find one by The One Minute Muse and she just slapped it on a journal cover and dug into it with stuff and made shapes and it looked like fun, and we were pretty sure we'd be able to find the other video, so I got some joint compound. Well, I went to the hardware store and to the spackle aisle (it annoys the shit out of me that "spackle" comes up in spellcheck - it's a freaking word!!) and I hunted for joint compound but I didn't find any. 

So I picked up two little jars of spackle, a "lightweight" one:

And an all-purpose one:

Then when I finally asked about joint compound, the idiot man tried to take me back to the spackle aisle. When I pushed and said I already had spackle, but I was looking for joint compound he told me it might be with the sheetrock.I wanted to ask if he knew that most people said "drywall" these days, but I didn't. Joiny compound is MUCH cheaper than spackle. Three times as much for the exact same price. But I couldn't get a tiny little bucket if it, like the spackle, so I had to get a big thing of it. Hopefully I'll fall in love with it and want to use it a lot, or else open up a little nail hole filling business. Anyone need a nail hole filled? Twenty-five cents. Oh, and you'll have to come pick me up because I have no car to get to your place. 

Anyway, here it is:

When I got home I wanted to try them all at once, so I put down a stencil and slapped all three of them on to it. This way when I painted over it, it would be easy to compare them since they were all right there. I used a plastic putty knife that was 98 cents at the hardware store. The light one was ridiculously light. It's the texture of marshmallow fluff without being sticky. The other spackle was more wet than I expected, but still really thick, and the joint compound was thickest. They all held their shape just fine as they dried.

Here I added alcohol spray to one side (like glimmer mist) and paint to the other. The light, marshmallowy one feels like foam, even now. The other two are completely solid. The paint worked exactly the same on all three. The ink, you can see at the top, soak in differently to the light one. Then I rubbed at the dried paint and ink to see what would happen. The light one held it, because it soaked in. The other two, the paint rubbed off. 

I had an idea about adding some texture to a painting, and since this one was gray and I was looking to create a dark blue, I used it.

And a blue paint I created myself with glazing liquid:

I put down a plastic doily that Kelly gave me and slapped the blue stuff over it and here it is drying:

I'm hoping to use it more as I go through the Fairies class. I'd like to see what happens when I mix the white ones with mica powders or iridescent medium for fairy wings. I'll try to keep you up to date on how it works!

Edited: Mica powder simply doesn't mix in at all. It just stayed in its own dry little clumps. Also, some of our viewers (and Kelly) reported problems with it "sticking" to their canvas. Mine is sticking completely fine. No indications that it might come off, even when I pick at it. My advice would be to NOT spread it with a palette knife. Palette knives are flexible, while a real putty knife is not. Also, really smash it on there. I didn't apply it gently, it's not going to rip anything - not even paper. Slap it on there like you want it to stay.

Bringing it BACK

Who missed us? I know, I know, EVERYONE! We're bringing back our web show. Tonight. 7PM Central Time.

What's that? Tune in and see..

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