Submitted for Your Approval

Here it is. My very first attempt at an art journal page. I don't like it. It was fun to play and I did learn a few things:

- Cartridge pen ink doesn't bond with gesso so if you write a lovely quote in beautiful green ink on a gessoed page and then wash watercolor over it, the ink will wash off; sort of. It will blend in with the lovely yellow watercolor paint and make a greenish yellow mess while destroying your quote. The quote, by the way, is "Gnothi Seauton" - Know Thyself. I thought that appropriate for the first page of a new journal.

- I like watersoluble oil pastels. They are fun and feel good when they glide on the paper. This is especially true if you dip them in water first. I will be using them again.

- Gel pen ink is as unforgiving as ballpoint pen ink and works it's way through successive layers of paint and whatnot so it takes a lot to soften the look of words written with it. (It's my favorite quote from Hope for the Flowers "You must want to fly so much you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.")

I will keep at it. I did say I would do this for the month of March. It felt awkward in prospect but when I sat down and got to it, I got caught up in the experience.

Before Dennis left I started stocking up on art supplies. When my sister was here for Christmas I showed her my stash. She said there will be a whole chapter in my biography titled "The Celibate Year: not surprisingly her most productive" Along the lines of channeling unused energy into art, I've been taking a watercolor class.

 

I took an introductory oil painting class in college taught by Pat Passlof. She's a lovely woman and successful artist but her teaching style was not compatible with my learning style and I spent the whole semester feeling completely lost. Imagine my surprise when she came up to me while I was working on my third or fourth painting for this class and grabbed my face and kissed me right on the forehead. "You got it" she said. To this day I have no idea what it was I got. All I know is she hung that painting and the one after it in the student show and one of them sold. Whatever it was I got didn't keep me from failing her class.

Turpentine was the preferred method for brush cleaning in Prof. Passlof's class, and I discovered, after I left college, that I'm allergic to it. That explained the headaches and rashes I started getting in her class and mistakenly associated with the oil paint. I still like oil paints but don't work with them much.

   

I switched to acrylics and loved them. I could do alot with them and they dry so fast I never accidentally smudge my work. They are much more non-toxic than oils so when I felt the need to paint with babies in the house I didn't worry so much.

I've always love the look of watercolors and have wanted to learn how to use them from someone who knows how. Lori is a Botanical Illustrator and was an instructor at the New York Botanical Garden. Painting with watercolor is very different from anything I'm used to using. They aren't very forgiving.

These are class sketches in paint so we can learn how to create basic shapes with watercolor. They are from two different classes and I can see I've already gotten more control over the paint.

You can see on the right that we then had to make sketches using the cylinder and cone shapes we learned so we could practice painting and shading. The goal, of course, is to capture in paint the gentle curves, the rounded length, the tapered tip of...

Foxglove. What did you think I was painting?

I did do a painting of roses. I don't like this one much either. There are elements I do like but the overall effect is more of an acrylic painting than a watercolor.

 

The thing that bugs me the most is the glaring composition error I somehow missed until I was halfway through with the painting. That big, full grandiflora is dead center and that's no good. I will probably cut this up at a later date to salvage bits of it or maybe I'll crop off the bottom and a few inches off the left side. 

I felt a bit frazzled by all this swimming in the deep end so I spent Sunday stringing beads on to crochet cotton to make myself a necklace.

Yes, that is size 80 crochet cotton and those are cylinder beads and they are a hair smaller than 11/0.

They are a gorgeous metallic purple with almost an Aurora Borealis finish but not quite. I needed to work on something where I felt confident in my skill and that's usually something crocheted.

   

After the first two or three rows this works up nicely and I love the effect. The beads are captured around the outside of a crocheted tube and the resulting necklace is fairly lightweight and very flexible. This will be the third necklace I've made this way and aside from some hand cramps from working so small I have no complaints about this.

The gold necklace is made with white crochet cotton, I think it was size 20, and size 11/0 gold-lined clear seed beads. The green necklace I made while teaching this technique in a class. It's on lavender size 10 cotton and green glass cube beads. It's slip stitch crochet and the beads are snugged up against each other tight enough that you can't see the lavender cotton thread. So, when class was over I just kept going until it was necklace length. There are several books on Bead Crochet that cover this technique. I used the first book on the list that comes up at that link.   

Comments

[Lee]

Hi Ellen-Mary,
Goodness gracious! You have been amazingly productive and apparently your sister was right!
I love that you are working on honing your skills and gaining control over the medium of watercolor, while at the same time allowing yourself to be free and spontaneous in your journal.
;o)
- Lee
P.S. I would suggest the post be re-named: "Submitted for Your Enjoyment!"

[Ellen-Mary]

I like your suggestion for the title.

I was thinking along the lines of The Twilight Zone because it somewhat feels like I entered a different dimension doing the journal and the watercolor class.

[Sue in western WA]

Those necklaces are *gorgeous*! {sigh} I've mastered a lot of needlework techniques in my time but never could get the hang of knitting or crochet. My sister got those genes ;- )

Bravo on starting your art journal! Very disappointing that your quotes got smudged, but at least you've made a start. Those are a couple of my more favorite quotes too.