Painting, Sketching, Journaling Techniques and GESSO!

Good Morning Everyone! As I sit here at the computer, loading up my photos, looking out the window and seeing the rays of the sun peeking out from the clouds... listening to Loreena McKennitt, there is a peacefulness in the air! It's going to be a good day!

As for Studio Madness this weekend (I'm giggling), I have wanted to try a mini workshop that I saw in the latest issue of Cloth, Paper & Scissors. Pam Carriker did a spread in this magazine in a step by step fashion. These magazines are great because they give us little mini workshops to try new and different techniques. So with that said, this is what I did.

STEP ONE: I used a canvas board 11x16 and gessoed the surface first. I then added my first wash of paint. Let it dry. I started added collage materials.

STEP 2: I started adding more washing of paints, rubber stamps (make sure you use waterproof ink pads on your stamps). I added gesso to my big Foam stamps and pressed them down on to the canvas, more collage materials, using gel medium.

STEP THREE: I continued adding layers of washes of paint and started popping out the texture of the foam stamp. I then sketched out my figure and painted her in a bit.

STEP FOUR: I continued adding paint her face to make sure I had nothing showing through on her face. I started using gesso to outline her dress form.

STEP FIVE: I started to roughly sketch out her face using a graphite pencil.

STEP 6: I started going over the face with a light wash of white paint. Not GESSO. Use White paint.
STEP SEVEN: Started adding and bring out her face by blending my colors for shading. I used Burnt Umber around the edges of my canvas to pop her out a bit more. I also shaded it around the figure and tried to blend it from the center out.

STEP 8: Started working on her eyes, and the rest of her facial features.

STEP 9: YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE HER COMPLETED. THAT WILL BE STEP 9!

These mini workshops are fabulous to learn new techniques and also to be used for practicing! Try them...YOU WILL LOVE IT!

Now today, at some point, I will be catching up with all of your blogs. Please forgive me if I haven't been to see you over the past week. I promise I will be checking up on all of you guys today. That is my goal! I received an email from that little spit fire of an artist, SONIA...and apparently she has tried her hand at some journal pages...Sonia, I will be by to check out your fabulous pages! I'm really proud of you that you are taking some of the techniques that I have been posting and using them in your art! WHOOOHOOO... Can't wait to visit you!

So to add to your journaling techniques, here are some more for you to play with:

Distressing your journal page or mixed-media canvas:

Prepare your surface (journal page or canvas) by adding some washes of paint to get a background color. While your page is drying, get some old magazines and start tearing out pages that have color on them and some images that you like.

Take your cut outs and start putting them on your page using gel medium. I would use gel medium because you are going to be adding paint after your cut outs have been glued down.
After your page has dried, take sand paper and start standing off some of the papers. Depending on the distressed look you want, either sand lightly or go heavy. Which I did in this example. See the scratch marks on the papers. Love this look!

See where I sanded and I exposed the background paint on my journal page (the hole).

Above, I added a wash of white paint and started to sketch out my figure with gesso. I wanted a ghost look to this page. Have fun and see what happens when you use this technique to your pages!

Remember this painting I started. Well, I have been staring at this darn thing, and it just was not singing to me! So, I did the next best thing...

I ADDED GESSO TO GIVE IT A NEW LOOK...HEY A NEW CANVAS TO USE! LOL


The thing about learning to paint and draw...it's ok to GESSO OVER IT AND START AGAIN! LOL I must get to Blicks to get more GESSO...I'm running low! LOL



Have some more product news to share:


This stuff is awesome and great for your journal pages. It gives your pages such texture. This would be great to try on a mixed-media painting!

Just look at what this page is going to look like when paint is added!

Here is another technique you can use on your journal pages or canvas. Take some paint (make sure it's a very thing wash) I added Golden's Acrylic Glazing Medium in Satin. Use a foam brush and lightly apply the paint to your page and then take a baby wipe and lift off some of the paint. Look at the cool effect you get. You can then go in and add bits of color with your paints or watercolor crayons. Fun, Fun, Fun!

I'm also working on getting my Element Art Doll Challenge completed for ADO's Blog Event. Make sure you sign up and play along with us over at http://www.artdollsonly.blogspot.com/ Sign up begins June 19th. This is what "EARTHLING" looks like now. Believe me, he is not done yet!

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday and a great week ahead. I know that I will be continuing my journey into the world of sketching, painting and learning to breath! Thank you all for visiting me, and I hope that you take some things here that I have shared with all of you and use them in your works. I would love to see your progress.

Until Next Time...

CHEERS!