Just for fun

This morning I've been painting a bit more of the church portal after almost two months without working on it, since it's starting to feel as if the whole blog is filled only with this painting I'll just add a link to a detail of today's progress.

So instead of today's painting session I'll post some of the other stuff I've been doing during march, this is my brother's birthday gift, an iPad! Well, not the real thing since it's not available here yet, but an arts&crafts bank version with some money.

Yeah, I know, looks like a school project but I had so much fun making it!

Have you ever tried to dye your own gesso?

This week I received a portrait on gesso that my friend Rhonda painted for me, so she's guilty of having me wanting to paint something on gesso again. And since I want to use gouache for this I've decided to use colored gesso instead of plain white and maybe use it as part of the painting, I'm blaming Carla O'Connor for that.

The fact is that I only have white gesso so I did some research and found a web where someone said that he had tinted his own gesso successfully with watercolor, gouache and acrylic paints, that's more than enough to encourage me to try, so since this is the first time I try to dye my own gesso I'll share the process, and some questions that have come with it so if any of you have ever tried something like this I'd love to hear any insight you can share.


So my first step was diluting the gesso a bit, enough for it to run nicely, produce few texture from the brush strokes and provide thin coats that dry fast and without cracks. Then the color, I was planning on a green color and the paint of choice is acrylic since I'd be needing quite a bit and didn't waste that much watercolor or gouache, so Jenkins Green it is since it's my only acrylic green, pretty ugly color, I know, plus somehow I didn't think about the fact that it was a mixture with a lot of white, the resulting color wasn't what I wanted so I added some yellow too (probably should have used a blue and a yellow from the beginning but I often got carried away when I try new things and instead trying something new in a controlled way I use to keep adding "new" stuff to try to the process, too many variables if you wish).


Step 6 is the result of mixing the gesso with Jenkins Green and right before mixing the Hansa Yellow Medium, the amount of green mixed in was the same as the yellow you can see in this photo, that makes a mixture of 50% gesso 50% acrylic paint more or less, this proportion worried me a bit and is my first doubt: isn't it too much paint? I use to apply 3 coats of gesso on each side of the board/paper so maybe it's a better option to add a first coat of plain gesso and then the tinted ones over it? or maybe it's not an issue at all and there's not a problem to have so much paint in the gesso mixture?

Before applying the gesso to the board I diluted it a bit more because the added paint had thickened it.

Once the gesso was ready I started to add it to the board, a foam brush is the perfect tool for this, it's completely inexpensive, easy to clean and gives enough texture but not too much so there's no need to sand the surface at all unless you're going for something extremely smooth, I like a bit of texture so no sanding needed here. Another good thing about thinning the gesso is that the drying time is almost non existent, when you finish applying the coat the starting point is almost ready to begin the second one, and if not a couple of minutes will be more than enough. I wonder how many of these thin layers would be needed if I wanted to sand the surface.


Ok, the last step shows the finished look after 3 layers of greened gesso and a zoom that hopefully shows the final texture of the surface. BTW I had to finish yesterday morning since I run out of mixture before finishing the 3 coats, so the total amount of gesso and paint used is a bit more than the one you see in the photos.

Maybe I'm just doodling giraffes but at least I'm not procrastinating

I doodled it yesterday night and started throwing acrylics in, I've been playing with it this morning and it's ended being acrylics, marker and chalky colored pencils. Somehow among all my stuff I don't have any kind of fixative, how has that happened!?!?

Plus I've just noticed it's anatomically incorrect!! WHAT!?!?!?! Oh, well, it'll have to do.

I hope this finish with my obsession of making giraffes for this guy who's gathering 1 million of them.

Done!

It's finally finished, I've loved painting in this format, wanna make more biggies.



Now there are just two more things to solve:

1.- framing, I wanted to put it over the mat so even the borders show, a friend mentioned someone doing it like that months ago, probably Carol Carter? I'm not sure, the problem won't be the matting but the framing, won't a cristal weight too much and be awfully expensive? will something made of plastic look good too or it will loose the shine when being cleaned? questions questions...

2.- Most important, how on earth do I scan or take a quality photo of it? I haven't tried but I'm pretty sure my scanner won't do it even if I scan it in a hundred little pieces, my good camera is dead and I know nothing about what light etc.. I should use and how, looks like big formats bring new challenges even after finishing the painting process, hmmmm...

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Unmasked

I won't be able to paint tomorrow so I better update the progress on the lanterns now, right?

The prints and kanji are finished and the mask removed, I missed a couple of spots when applying it but it's not a big deal, I painted out of the masking fluid at some spots too lol, don't ask me how but those doesn't look bad either, kind of interesting, or maybe I'm just being delusional, anyway the next time I sit to paint I'll be working with my old good watercolors on those large white lanterns, can't wait!



It looks mostly pure black, right? I don't have any close up to share but there're indeed a lot of patterns in those blacks.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Wednesday

Even I am going to get sick of posting these updates.

Today's works has been doing a first layer of shades of black on all prints and kanji, and finishing half of them, the pic shows both stages and some of them with the mask already removed, this is going fast.



Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Tuesday

And the under coat of all the kanji and prints is finished, in the blink of an eye! I know, I know, it looks horrible lol but it's not really horrible, just in the middle of an ugly stage, the important thing is that I haven't had to do it slow motion, it's wet on wet, it has continuity from shape to shape and finally it looks like it's progressing.



I haven't used masking fluid (nor continued painting yet) around the bases of the lanterns because I won't be using the same method I'm using for the kanji and prints, those bases are big and simple enough to let me work on them my usual way without worrying to much so they'll remain like this until the final stage.

On a different subject, I have 2 orders of goodies on the way home YAY! maybe I don't need them but lord, how do I "need" them XD Now I'm in a quest to find a place in Spain that sells Fabriano paper rolls, I assume there's no one around who knows about Spanish art shops that could provide them, right? I've only found them at Artifolk but they don't sell them out of the UK, my chances of finding it here are close to zero I guess.... maybe I should take that as a signal from the painting gods to stop purchasing things that I don't really need at the end of the month, maybe.

Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

Third one, I have my winner

So I finished my last test yesterday, the process has been similar to the previous 2 but using mostly acrylic paint except for the blue which is a half/half mix of watercolor and acrylic



1 to 4.- Applied masking fluid and the base coat of color (blue red and ochre)
5.- added some layers of pure black or black mixed with red or blue
6.- removed the mask and tested the bleeding, 0% bleeding, YAY! I was afraid the blue wouldn't work but it did, what could go wrong with the black in the first test? maybe there were more watercolor that acrylic in the mix or maybe wc lamp black just don't wanna work for me.

Anyway, this is how the 3 tests look like next to each other



I'm going for the third one, it's worked pretty well, looks interesting and there's no bleeding, I can fake bleedings here and there on purpose later on. I still like better how the black watercolor looks compared to the black acrylic but that reason doesn't have enough weight to make me struggle through the 2º test's process all over the painting.

The red kanjis and prints won't be made with mask and acrylic, I believe I can work those out without problem since I won't have the horrible bleeding lamp black gives me.

I spent the day yesterday masking all the prints and kanjis that are going to be black and this morning finished some spots I missed yesterday, since it's monday again I'll have to wait to work more on this one but now that I know what I''m gong to do I'm sure this stage will be fast, maybe I can finish this baby before the end of the month :)
Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

white or black

I've been doing a test in one of the lower shapes of the lanterns, just to decide how I'm going to work on those blacks, hmmmmmm, after finishing with it I have more doubts, here's a step by step



1, 2 & 3.- Masked the shape and added some blue and red as a richer base, it dried lighter as often and mute but the variation was there.
4, 5.- The first layer of black/blue black/red added and dried, I wanted to keep some of the shape of the paper of the lantern and play with textures and edges.
6.- Sprayed some very diluted blue and red acrylic paints which was the main reason to mask around the print in the first place, the mixes of black run a bit, enough to make me loose the contrast and edges when it dried as seen in step 7.
8, 9.- Plan B, if spraying the acrylic don't work maybe applying the back mixed with blue and with red acrylic paint instead of watercolor would work, waited for it to dry and removed the masking. It doesn't show as much of the underpainting as I wanted at first but it's a corner so I don't mind not having it as interesting in there as in other areas of the image.
10.- The main reason of trying the spray and acrylic was to avoid the bleeding of lamp black which seem to love running around, yet I put a brushtroke over it and it still bled a bit, not to much but it's a concern, 11 and 12 are the acrylic palette and the watercolor palette, I think I mixed enough acrylic paint to make the black permanent.

So what's gone wrong? maybe the sprayed acrylic was too diluted and didn't work and what's bleeding is the color from some areas that can have remained uncovered when I applied the color in the last steps?

Right now I have 2 choices, to paint the lanterns' paper first or the symbols first, I was decided to paint the symbols first and once fixated to paint all the rest, but if those blacks still bleed I'll have problems, in the other hand I could finish all the white of the lanterns first and then the symbols but then I wouldn't be able to use the masking fluid 'cos it's already lifting the colors of the subtle washes, hmmmmmm, gotta ponder a bit more about it.

The good thing is that I'm liking the kind of variation that I'll be able to get in those black shapes and still have them black which was one of my goals for this one



Here's a gif of the step by step, just because:



Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14

I'm not nervous

It was looking like this this morning before I decided to throw in some darks,



Something was telling me to build up the paper of the lanterns a bit more before going to the darks yet I didn't listen to myself and I went ahead with some blue and mauve and it wasn't going as I wanted and in a blink of an eye decided to add some red there and why not perylene maroon since it looks like blood and I like it tons and.... I stepped right into the ugly stage sooner than I thought, as I was adding those colors I couldn't help thinking "didn't I decide to have pure black in this one? what the hell am I doing?" ok, well there's plenty of work to do yet so this can disappear under layers and layers of color :(



Links to the whole of the WIP: step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, step 6, step 7, step 8, step 9, step 10, step 11, step 12, step 13, step 14