How To Bee Better?

I am still working with Neocolor IIs.  Here are 3 pieces using pictures in my yard.  The most recent one is on the top.  It is on black paper.  It’s hard to get coverage, but I also like how the colors behave. I also like the top of the flower and the bee the in this one.

The other two don’t do much for me, but working on the same subject matter multiple times was useful.

I am interested in figuring out how to blend better when I am using these more like watercolor.

Copied Artwork #2

For the second week of class, we treated the Neocolor IIs like watercolor.  Since I have not played much with water based media, I found the blending to be challenging.  This took me about 4 sittings to complete.  Class finished up this past Thursday, so I am a bit behind.  When I am done, I am thinking about doing a second version of each piece.

Here is an in process shot.

After spending so much time on this one, I’m looking forward to seeing a Georgia O’Keefe in person.  I think I will appreciate it more. 

Hodge Podge

Before I started the class at Wet Paint, I pulled out the Neocolor IIs and started a piece the way I used to use them (small piece on its side and layering up color).  It didn’t get finished before class started.  When I  pulled it out to work on, I tried doing what we did in class last week on top (filling in color and activating it with water).  Last night, I decided to finish it and I scribbled, painted, or whatever.

One of the many things I love about the Neocolor IIs is their opacity, making it possible to try and fix things.  A lot of the time I find that my lights need to be lighter. For this one, I used the side of a white piece, plus some scribbles to make that happen.

The photo I used was from a trip I took in the fall. I didn’t know what flower was, but I liked the crazy center part.  Using Google Lens, I believe this is a Japanese anemone.

Back To It

Other than knitting, I have not felt the siren call to create.  Sure, it would whisper ever so slightly from time to time, but it's been easy to hurry past that.  Recently, it got louder and, at the same time, I found several classes that I wanted to take.  

The first class was a Valentine Card Workshop with Jane Davies.  I become aware of her through a friend I met at one of Kat Corrigan's classes.

Valentines and/or the well-known heart-shaped symbol was used as a way to explore collage, shapes, colors, patterns, and other parts of what Jane referred to as visual language.  The class was online.  While it was only 2 hours, she covered a lot.  Even better, it was fun!

For the next couple of days, I played around with making some different hearts, but didn't complete them.  When Valentines Day rolled around, I had only glued down and finished two of them.  That morning, I decided that I wanted to make more so I could hide them around the house for my partner to find.  I gave myself a set and short amount of time and buzzed through a bunch more.  They didn't have to be perfect.  They just needed to read as a heart and be vaguely interesting.  

It was a blast and I think my partner had fun stumbling across them throughout the day. 

I don't have a stack of "collage" paper, so I mostly used things cut out from magazines.  The polka dots came from a thank you card from a friend.  

Here's one I made for me to hang up in my drab cubicle.  While I don't spend much time there, I've slowly been adding things, even though it is a shared cubicle. 

The week after the Valentine workshop, I started a 3-week class at Wet Paint where each week we are copying one painting using Neocolor II crayons from Carn D'Ache.  I was interested in exploring different ways to use these and this class looked like a great way to do that.  It is also a remote class.  

Week 1 was copying from a Wayne Thiebaud painting using the Neocolor IIs and we were mostly coloring in / filling in areas of color and later activating them with water.  It was a fun way to play and practice.  One area where I would like to be more careful is when you put down the small bits of contrast or outline colors in this piece.  You really don't need much and I was a little heavy handed.  It also helps to be careful with your brush and amount of water and it would be good to work on that.  Even so, I can't help but smile when I look at this one.  

I learned a lot and will probably do a second version.  

Mostly Ephemeral

Right after I took the class at Wet Paint, I cut up different shapes and types of shapes from different types of paper, mostly items from the mail.  I’ve been taking out different “sets” of shapes and playing around with them.  

With the circles, I tried arranging them in different ways. For several things that seemed remotely interesting, I snapped a photo, because gluing these all down would have taken too much time.

I like this second version better.

Yesterday, I played around with some squiggly shapes and decided to glue those down.

I am enjoying this form of play. 

Ephemeral

This morning, I decided to test two different papers to see if they could handle watered down paint.  The answer was no.  After I painted them, but before they were fully dry and started to curl up, I took one page and started playing around with some cut up paper pieces I made. 

At some point in the mass of shapes, I went from looking at the relationship of the cut pieces to each other and became aware of the negative space in the blue between the shapes and grooving on that. 

I didn’t care that the blue and purple isn’t the greatest color exploration.  I wasn’t trying to complete anything, which is good because the paper has curled terribly and the pieces are loose and have shifted.  I just enjoyed starting my day this way and capturing this moment.

Back To Doing

I am back to doing or am slowly getting back to doing.  Doing what?  Something. Anything.  I don’t know.  At the core is a need to create and explore.  One thing I know is that doing leads to documenting.

Not long after finally creating something, I took a class at Wet Paint.  It was about self care and collage, so I’ve been playing around with shapes and not getting concerned about the results.  

I don’t even know what this is, but I created it.

This did not turn out initially or now, but I put it to good use and experimented.

Layer one was in Neocolor IIs (water soluble) used in the way I have used them in the past.  Since I didn’t like the result, I used a water brush, let that dry, and put more color on top with Neocolor Is (not water soluble).  I can see myself pushing this further and playing with this more.