Loving me some PEBEO Mixed Media! Watch what I did at CHA Mega Show 2015

I really love my Pebeo paints, and I really enjoyed spending a few days demonstrating so many fun things you can do with them. I painted a realistic seahorse floating in the seaweed to show how you can control the reactions with the paints and lay them down to create exactly the painting you want-

but here, in this video, you can see me using the pouring method. When you pour the paints and swirl them together, you can get some really interesting effects. You can also apply SOME control to this process. When you get to know the paints you will see that some reactions can be predicted. Such as:

Vitrail + Moon = lace
Moon + Ceramic = lace
Prisme + Moon = flat mica sheen (no honeycomb)

There is an awesome almost water-lily pond effect if you pour droplets of Moon into Vitrail or Ceramic after you let them set for a few minutes. And of course, different colors have slightly different effects. So if you want to learn to control the paint, like everything else in life... practice makes perfect!

Enjoy my demo :)

Thermographic Silk Screens from my drawing!

Have you ever heard of thermograph printing? I hadn't either. Somehow in all my wild Googleing I stumbled across this technique which basically makes a silkscreen without all the crazy fuss! It's almost instant. So then I found this awesome Etsy shop, uploaded a drawing, and had a shipping confirmation that my screen was ready, all within about a half hour! Wow!

Here's what my print looks like on a small journal cover.

And this is the actual screen. Reusable!

Posted with Blogsy

Real Mixed Media and why I love it

I really love mixed-media art. I mean REALLY. I like the ability to use whatever tools and supplies make my paintings, sculptures and jewelry come to life and look how I imagine in my mind.

I decided I needed to work on a submission for the Allegany Arts Council holiday cards. They sent out a notice saying they will be choosing 6 pieces this year to make a set. Since I love a creative prompt to get my juices flowing, and I immediately knew what I wanted to draw, it was really easy to start and finish this piece. This is just a detail- the artwork has more to it, but I'm keeping the full thing off the web until after I submit :)

I live in Cumberland Maryland, in the mountains. There are lots of old houses here, on lots of hills. Winter is coming- the trees aren't bare yet, but they will be. I live around the corner from the animal shelter- and pets are really important here. I have a pretty kitty, and fond memories of my dog Kasha. I can't take Tigerlily out for a walk but I can remember how Kasha enjoyed the snow.  I knew I would paint a woman walking with her dog, along cobblestone streets with gentle blue and purple sunset clouds on new fallen snow. There are gorgeous white-barked trees along a path I walk on frequently so they just had to be in the picture, with a row of cute houses atop a distant hill. My town, abstracted.

I used so many art supplies to make this. Started with a home-made large rubber stamp and some dye ink pads to create background texture, then spray dyes over stencils to block out the hills and trees. Ripped some paper to use to mask the hills further while I rubbed Pan Pastels on the edges to make them stand out. More Pan Pastels for the buildings, bushes, and path. Cute floral small round stamps for the "snowflakes" texturing the sky. I used the most AWESOME metallic Gelly Roll pens all over the place but most noticeably for the cobblestones. It was like drawing with fine glitter and I love how it looks. Then I cut up some very old 1920's sheet music to make the woman's dress and head, and rubbed dye inks and pan pastels onto the music for color (used mostly my fingers to control the color application.) Next I painted white gesso on the face area, hair, and to draw the dog. The cool thing about the spray inks is that they rewet with the gesso to create a kind of muddy/blue base color for the hair and dog. I then used a myriad of 2oz craft paint bottles along with floating medium (which is basically clear gel that thins the paint) to paint layers of fur on the dog and hair on the gal. Prismacolor pencils come next, to define edges, faces, and details. Then watercolors to detail the trees and stones in the path. Finally some last touches with the gelly roll pens and then my favorite part- opening up my second floor studio window- the one without the screen, to spray some PYMII on the paper to fix all the various pastels, pencils and dyes in place. Whew!

I like not having to say "I'm a watercolor artist" or "I paint in Acrylics." To me that is an incredibly limiting thing to have to say about yourself. And since finding Pan Pastels, I really honestly don't know what I did without them, lol.