In order to counterbalance the chaos and craziness that apparently is our new normal, I consistently turn to three things: Nature; moving my body in some way; and creativity. (Ok, four things if we’re counting wine.) I felt the need to reconnect with you all and, since I don’t really have much to say, I thought I would show you what I’ve been up to in the creativity department.
These two paintings were accepted in the Hawaii Watercolor Society Open Show:
“Moonchild” is the batik painting on my website that has a video demonstrating how I work the wax-resist method. Fun and fast to watch.
“The Starry Unknown” was a fun experiment in creating abstract art. I love how the white part of the paper, the section without paint, glows.
Coming up in October is the first annual Strong Artist Life online show and I have a few paintings accepted in that as well. You will see invites to check it out on my Facebook page.
“Exploda” is an exploration into multi-media creativity. In this case, I started with the batik watercolor method, then added hand-painted collage papers, then I added another layer of backing paper and used fluid acrylics and gesso over all that. This process was so fun and crazy that I’m going to show you all the steps in a separate post so keep an eye out.”
“Wake Up Laughing” This is another Take 2 abstract inspired by the outlines from dried color washes left behind from other paintings. An extra gift from the art faeries.
I’m prepping for a batik demonstration I’ll give this month and I decided on five bamboo designs ranging from distant view to an almost abstract close up image. I used the same color palettes for each one and am, as always, inspired by the varied the results. I’m going to show the group one painting in progress for each stage in the batik process. If you are on Instagram or Facebook, you can find very short videos on my sites telling about these paintings and their progress.
Here are some of the demo paintings in progress. I’ll explain more about each one later:
This design stage has three color washes, two wax applications as well as the final overall wax application. This one is ready to be ironed and then on to watercolor crayons and colored pencils, collage, fluid acrylics, or whatever else I can think of.
Here you see two color washes and two wax applications. I’m also creating a new portfolio of my paintings, a binder of giclée prints, to show and tell my take on the batik method. I also had my photographer create print packs - giclée prints of my paintings with mats - that I’ll offer to the group as well. I look forward to interacting with them.
What about you? I hope you are establishing your own new routines, ways of keeping your minds and bodies sane, healthy and happy. Let me know what’s working for you.
Exploda demo coming next, gang…