Opposite of blended

Pushing paint around

 Hi!!!

Remember me?

Did really more than 10 days pass since my last post? 

This is a period when I have almost no time to play.
Any little time between work (real job) and work I use to see my family a bit and rest and relax so that I can work again.

We all know that painting can be very relaxing, so that's what I did on some afternoons. No thinking, no expectations. I watched Glee on Hulu with one eye, and kept the other one on my rosin paper, just pushing paint around.

These faces are going away tomorrow. I hope that they will be good enough for a project that one special lady has in mind. Happy Sunday!

A tired journal page

A bit tired, stressed out, but doing fine. I always relax when I paint in my journal.

Getting arboreal: A Nature Collection, part 3

Look at "my" tree!!!

You've seen it in August, in all of it's summer green glory. And I showed how it looked in November, with barely any pretty yellow leaves holding on. And here it is now! Pink and frilly and happy and pretty! When we bought the house it was green.... I had no idea that it will turn into this beauty. Imagine my surprise when spring came! 

I look at it from this perspective all the time. I can't get over all the pink flowers and blue sky...  I look, relax and say thank you every day.

So many things to be thankful for....

Drop by Julie's blog to see how the other trees changed.

Crackle, crackle, crackle

Remember when I said that I used up my crackle on this girl here? I received questions about the crackle product, so I thought it would be the best if I took a picture of it and showed you. The first two bottles on the left are the ones I used. Anita's Fragile crackle in two steps. I bought it several years ago and don't even remember where I got it. I do remember that it always worked well and was easy.

I decided to paint a similar thing on several pieces of cardboard and test some other crackling mediums. I am not going to show you Golden's simply because it didn't work for me. Twice. I tried it twice and it did not crackle AT ALL. I don't know why. I used it before and was successful with it. This time - absolutely nothing. So.... nothing is what I'm showing about that.

I used DecoArt's 'Crackling Wood' on the first example. It is meant to be used as a background, not over the painting. It worked fast and good. The only thing that is wrong is my choice of colors. I should have used more contrasty colors. Pink and this yellow really don't look very good, but will still show you what this product does, and if you decide to try it you know which colors not to use.

I forgot what I used on the following example. Do you see the cracks? No? Neither to I. Whatever I used - it wasn't working. Now when I look at it - it's probably painted over the Golden crackle. Too bad.... 

This one isn't much better I'm afraid. I used a layer of Metal Leaf Adhesive Size followed by Gum Arabic and then oil paint over it. It was supposed to give me believable, subtle crackling lines. If you look closely, you'll be able to see one or two....

If you don't believe me - see for yourself. Two thin lines!!! Very subtle. Too subtle.

The next example is a mistake, but I think it looks cool. I painted my background and the roses, then slathered the weathered wood medium over it. I tried painting a layer of paint over and it hid the roses almost completely. I didn't like that, so I used a wet cloth to wipe it off. You can see that interesting blobs stayed on. As they were transparent, they didn't bother me. Over that I painted a layer of DeltaArt's One step crackle and the result were pretty, tiny, lovely cracks.

I like how those look. I call it a happy mistake. Never give up when something doesn't look right. There is always the "what if I do this" question..... eventually, something good will turn out.

Finally, the one that I really, really liked..... a product that I paid less than $3.00 for.... DecoArt One Step Crackle. The name speaks for itself. You paint whatever you want, paint a layer of the medium, wait for it to dry, glaze over with a dark color (or light if the background is dark) and there you have it.... a ton of tiny spider-web lines all over the painting. Very easy!

There are many other ways to play with this subject, I just didn't have the time to cover more than this. What I really want to try now is Golden's medium but on a different surface. Maybe it doesn't like cardboard.... it really shouldn't matter because I painted an acrylic layer first, but that's something that I want to try. Playing with regular glue is easy too.... And I know that there are other products. For me - the one step DecoArt for now is the winner and one that I know will use the most. 

Now, please tell me about your experiences.....

Happy Easter!!!

Do you ever use the "magic crayon' that comes with many egg coloring kits?

Hana wrote a secret message on one egg, and waited too see how I'll react when I read it. After I dipped the egg in dye and read it I saw that it said "I love my family". I couldn't ask for more.

I always keep those crayons and add them to my crayon box in the art room. They are fun tools to use for resist techniques. I really didn't have time to paint today (way too much cooking, baking, cleaning), but someone dared me to paint anyway - so I did. I drew random lines and words in my journal and washed some diluted acrylics over it.

Then I added more lines with the magic crayon and washed another color over it.

I decided that that's interesting enough and painted over.

You can use any other non-water soluble crayon as resist, but I like this transparent one because same as Hana's message - you really don't know what you drew/wrote until you put color over it.
Try it - it's fun.

Playing with rosin paper - part 4

I finally posted the last in the rosin paper series. I think this one might be my favorite. I hope you'll like it.