no new year resolutions here!

I don’t make New Year resolutions however, in recent years, I have chosen a word to guide my actions.  Sometimes this isn’t successful though and for 2015 I had to go back through Quinn McDonald‘s blog to find out what it was.  That hasn’t deterred me for choosing one for this year.  She wrote a great post of selecting your word here.

I chose the word ADVANCE . . . as a verb.  I’ve sat with it, considered it, for a week or two now and have changed it for the word ATTEND . . . again as a verb.  I will attend to now, attend to self-care, attend to my thoughts and listen to what is blowing in on the wind.  Nice and simple.  No earth-shattering leaf-turning changes . . . I will just attend, 100% as often as I can and forgive myself when I can’t.

There is a second idea I have for the year.  As I have most of what I need, more than what I need in some instances, I’m wondering how long it will be before I need something that isn’t a consumable . . . that includes books and art supplies, food and drink, basic clothing (public nudity isn’t welcome in my small corner of paradise), items to maintain the state of my house so it doesn’t fall down around my ears, and perhaps music.

Free basic art supplies . . . sticks of perfectly good charcoal made from grapevine trimmings in a brazier (a large terracotta flower-pot wrapped in chicken wire so it doesn’t fall apart).  The brazier was a gift couple of years back, the grapevine trimmings from my son’s house and the fuel was driftwood from the beach.

My needs are few and my wants can’t be bought.  Happy New Year to every one of you.

my response to an offer

Recently, The Textile Artist made me an offer, 3D Mixed Media Textile Art, almost to good to refuse and if you’re in need to good, sound advice (this based upon the content of the site) it might be perfect for you.  I turned it down . . . yesterday I received an email asking for feedback which I responded to thus, albeit with a couple of minor fixes and changes:

I guess I’m feeling deluged by inspirational posts and offers of courses and resources and in danger of spending more time looking at the work of others that developing my own.  I have far too many read books on my shelves (my own and from the library) and ‘bookmarked’ web sites, more than I can hope to give adequate attention so I have unscubscribed from many blogs (not yours) so that I can focus on my own work.  As a mixed media ‘maker’ and someone who has always tried anything and everything it is time to focus and the only way to do that is to withdraw a little from all the wonderful work and wisdom available and simply do my own work . . . follow my own wisdom.

I appreciated being asked why I’m not partaking of what is obviously a wonderful offer as it has made me bring to the surface and articulate what has been gong on in my mind for a while now.

And might I add I’m still very tempted?

a change of direction

I’ve tidied away the paints and I can see flat surfaces.  Now it’s time to get back to this . . .

9 in 9
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

Which led to this and then . . . stopped.  Or maybe some of this although it’s too windy to harvest today.

Harvesting harakeke/flax.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

I need to use my hands again rather than brushes . . . to get in close contact with the materials.

experiments continued

Having liked the results written up in my post, experiments with plastic, I decided to try different combinations of black and bright colours.

Black gesso and black acrylic under brights (magenta vermillion and cadmium yellow medium).

Black acrylic and India ink as the top layer over the bright colours.

In each case (black under/black over) I used the medium at full viscosity or watered down.  I also used the magazine-wrap plastic as well as cling film.

The results were similar to before however the most effective, in my opinion, was when I used a diluted top coat as more of the previous layer shows through.

Diluted India ink over bright acrylics and magazine wrap plastic . . . I forgot to dilute it before application so I spritzed it with water.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

Diluted bright acrylic over black acrylic and cling film.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

Brights over black gesso and magazine-wrap plastic. Unfortuantely I put the black smudge on after with my grubby fingers.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

Even the magazine wrap plastic looked interesting after I’d used both sides . . . I’ll probably use it again knowing that it will leave remnants of colour behind.  Hmmm . . . I wonder if I can stick down with a matt gel? 
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

I used Atelier Interactive acrylics for these samples. I bought them myself however if Atelier wants to subsidise my play experiments that would be lovely!

And now that my curiosity has been satisfied it’s time to put all my paints away otherwise I won’t get some presents made and of course I can’t tell you about those because my family read this blog.  Maybe I’ll lay our some cardboard first and make gift tags . . . I’m thinking of white under and over pastels.  So just a little more playtime perhaps or is this perseverance beginning to blossom?

experiments with plastic

In the last post I wondered how the thickness of plastic placed over wet paint and allowed to dry, would affect the texture.  I also wondered how the thickness of the paint would affect the result.  Two variables – two experiments.

Step one was to apply gesso to some sketch paper and allow it to dry so I would have a non-porous base layer.  After that I applied a background of deep turquoise and magenta acrylic paint.   When the background was dry I used some lime acrylic paint thinned with water on one sheet and straight from the tube on the second.

The plastics I used were cling film (Glad Wrap, Saran Wrap) and the plastic that comes wrapped around magazines received through the post (there’s nothing like free resources).  I also used re-used some 25 mm or 1 inch bubble-wrap.

1. Diluted top coat, magazine-wrap plastic.  The variation in the background looks especially good to me.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

2. Diluted top coat, cling film.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

3. Diluted top coat, re-used bubble wrap. I just love the remnants of paint that have been left behind.  And again, the transparent top-coat allows the variations of the background to show through
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

4. Full viscosity paint top coat, magazine-wrap plastic.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

5. Full viscosity top coat, cling film.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

6. Full viscosity top coat, clean bubble wrap.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

7. Full viscosity top coat, re-used bubble wrap

8. A close up from the previous sample.
Wendy @ Late Start Studio

I liked the effect of both parts of the experiment, I really liked how the re-used bubble wrap left remnants of paint behind.  The diluted paint gave a lovely transparent effect with an opaque paint . . . the first three images have to be my favourites.   Whether I use diluted paint or at full strength would depend on what effect I wanted to make.

As to the choice of plastic?  The thinner the plastic the finer the details and the more likelihood the results can be controlled to some extent . . . controlling cling film is difficult enough at the best of times however by twisting it slightly, bunching it up after it was laid on the wet paint, I could manage a degree of control over the number of marks but very little over where they were.  I thought it would be rather wonderful to be able to manipulate it to form the veins of a leaf.

By removing the plastic just before it was dry it would be possible to soften the edges of the marks but right now I’m thinking about colour combinations; neon over black, black over brights, various earth tones with a transparent top-coat . . . hmmm, this could keep me busy.

Did I have fun? Was it worth while?  Will I continue exploring? Will I put samples in a journal? Damn right!