Apr 8, 2010
Sep 5, 2009
Glass tiles
I ordered some glass tiles and bails from and etsy shop called Candy Tiles2 and i got them in the mail the other day and started working on them.
I bought ten to try, 5 for me and 5 for my sister.
I used polymer medium to stick the paper to it and I used decorative paper for the backing.
Anyhoo, this was my tester one, Daqueran from my comic. Obviously as a test to see how marketable they would be.
Im going to make the other 4 using my abstract painting to practise and get the hang of it.
So Im going to make 4 of this paintings and sell them on Deviantart to earn some pennies to buy some more glass tiles and supplies to get some made for conventions next year!
Aug 28, 2009
Gamblin Cold Wax Medium
Yesterday at work, I was painting the windows of Opus for the Back to School sales that start September 1st and on the windowsill was a dead dragonfly that had gotten trapped in the store a few months before.
We all wondered where it had gone and there it was, all crispy and sunbaked. I decided that those wings were going into an art. Of course having a twin, I had to share my treasure, but I only needed two for my vision anyway.
So, I got someone else to cut the wings off, because it's a bug, and im not touching any gross dead bug, and I carted them home to encase on a painting in wax.
It's still drying, but I can share with you the glories of cold wax medium.
Cold wax medium is Wax with mineral spirits. The wax can be bought in cans and it is soft and will stay soft as long as you keep your tin closed tight.
Cold wax is a medium you use with oil paints. It's a matting agent that you can mix into your oil paints. It gives the paint a matte finish when it's dry and if you use enough, can give some texture as well.
I don't use it as a matting agent though. I followed my sisters idea and used it more for encasing found objects on a canvas.
I prefer cradle panels, but sometimes I use canvas.
This most recent piece I used an 8x8 deep canvas, because I had intended to submit it to the Anonymous art show, but Im not sure if I still will. I like it alot.
Anyway, so what I did was primed the canvas with Tri-art Canvas Gesso. It's a tan colour, much the colour of raw canvas. It's nice, because when I work on Canvas, im not a fan of painting on white. I don't mind white when I paint on paper though, go figure.
The canvas I bought was already tripple primed, so I only did one coat of the Tri-art Gesso, just to change the colour.
So after it's primed, and it's dry, i used tri-art and Golden burnt umber, portrait pink and titanium white to dry brush and smear some textures. I was going for sweet and girly so I kept it very light.
Being acrylics they dried very quickly and I was able to move onto the fun part right away.
I use a pallet knife and the wax spreads like butter, it's smooth, creamy and easy to spread.
I put a layer of cold wax, not too thick, just to create a surface for my found objects to stick to.
The wax dries quite slowly, so you have plenty of working time, so don't rush.
I took some grass picked on our trip to alberta. I traded my sister two dragonfly wings for some blades of alberta grass, because I didn't think to pick any while we were there.
But I got to the dragonfly first, so it worked out.
Anyway, I arranged my grass in the corner. I always tend to gravitate to the bottom corners when I do foreground, and it sucked, because mine turned out a little too close to how my sisters turned out, but it's okay.
I layed my grass down, and it took quite a few tries to get the grass to look right. You may think that doing abstract is easy and requires no thought or planning, but that is not true...
More on that in another post.
Anyway, after almost 45 minutes of picking off, moving and changing the grass I got the pattern I was looking for, now it was time to add the dragonfly wings and little details.
First, I took two interesting looking grass seed pods and put them together. They looked like cute bugs.
Then I carefully, because they were very brittle and delicate, layed down the dragonfly wings.
Once everything is in place, I used a pallet knife again and layed down soe layers of Cold Wax Medium.
Cold wax medium does not dry 100% clear. It has a fogyness, that is quite beautiful. It's wax, so it'll dry like wax. So I varied the thickness of the wax in areas with my pallet knife to create some less vibrant/clear areas. It adds texture and detail.
I let it dry overnight, ut it wasn't quite dry today and I noticed that the dragonfly wings were not down as well as they should be. So I added some more wax today and some texture.
This is the undried product, the wax will clear up slightly and dry very hard.
I suggest you try this product, it is very cool =D
Gamblin Cold Wax Medium!
We all wondered where it had gone and there it was, all crispy and sunbaked. I decided that those wings were going into an art. Of course having a twin, I had to share my treasure, but I only needed two for my vision anyway.
So, I got someone else to cut the wings off, because it's a bug, and im not touching any gross dead bug, and I carted them home to encase on a painting in wax.
It's still drying, but I can share with you the glories of cold wax medium.
Cold wax medium is Wax with mineral spirits. The wax can be bought in cans and it is soft and will stay soft as long as you keep your tin closed tight.
Cold wax is a medium you use with oil paints. It's a matting agent that you can mix into your oil paints. It gives the paint a matte finish when it's dry and if you use enough, can give some texture as well.
I don't use it as a matting agent though. I followed my sisters idea and used it more for encasing found objects on a canvas.
I prefer cradle panels, but sometimes I use canvas.
This most recent piece I used an 8x8 deep canvas, because I had intended to submit it to the Anonymous art show, but Im not sure if I still will. I like it alot.
Anyway, so what I did was primed the canvas with Tri-art Canvas Gesso. It's a tan colour, much the colour of raw canvas. It's nice, because when I work on Canvas, im not a fan of painting on white. I don't mind white when I paint on paper though, go figure.
The canvas I bought was already tripple primed, so I only did one coat of the Tri-art Gesso, just to change the colour.
So after it's primed, and it's dry, i used tri-art and Golden burnt umber, portrait pink and titanium white to dry brush and smear some textures. I was going for sweet and girly so I kept it very light.
Being acrylics they dried very quickly and I was able to move onto the fun part right away.
I use a pallet knife and the wax spreads like butter, it's smooth, creamy and easy to spread.
I put a layer of cold wax, not too thick, just to create a surface for my found objects to stick to.
The wax dries quite slowly, so you have plenty of working time, so don't rush.
I took some grass picked on our trip to alberta. I traded my sister two dragonfly wings for some blades of alberta grass, because I didn't think to pick any while we were there.
But I got to the dragonfly first, so it worked out.
Anyway, I arranged my grass in the corner. I always tend to gravitate to the bottom corners when I do foreground, and it sucked, because mine turned out a little too close to how my sisters turned out, but it's okay.
I layed my grass down, and it took quite a few tries to get the grass to look right. You may think that doing abstract is easy and requires no thought or planning, but that is not true...
More on that in another post.
Anyway, after almost 45 minutes of picking off, moving and changing the grass I got the pattern I was looking for, now it was time to add the dragonfly wings and little details.
First, I took two interesting looking grass seed pods and put them together. They looked like cute bugs.
Then I carefully, because they were very brittle and delicate, layed down the dragonfly wings.
Once everything is in place, I used a pallet knife again and layed down soe layers of Cold Wax Medium.
Cold wax medium does not dry 100% clear. It has a fogyness, that is quite beautiful. It's wax, so it'll dry like wax. So I varied the thickness of the wax in areas with my pallet knife to create some less vibrant/clear areas. It adds texture and detail.
I let it dry overnight, ut it wasn't quite dry today and I noticed that the dragonfly wings were not down as well as they should be. So I added some more wax today and some texture.
This is the undried product, the wax will clear up slightly and dry very hard.
I suggest you try this product, it is very cool =D
Gamblin Cold Wax Medium!
Apr 18, 2009
Take that canSON rep!
So the Canson paper reps came. I don't think they could have BEEN anymore american. They said canSON, haha. Really strong accents, it's funny XD.
Anyway, they gave us a rundown on canson, sorry canSON papers and the company. You could tell they were salesman... I hate those kinds of practiced and rehearsed scenarios, with the powerpoint presentations.. BLAH. We aren't buisness people, we're freaking artists! We don't need to be sold on paper... anyway!
The point is, I took that opportunity to mention my distaste in the horrible Canson fanboy comic board packaging design.
If you haven't seen that crap, check it out: http://www.fanboypaper.com/
Quality paper, belittled.
Protraying comic artists as fat ugly nerds.
Anyhoo, so I told them it was embarrassing to purchase and it was belittling. They yammered on about how they have done surveys and 94% of people found them funny, blah blah.
Don't try and sell me that line! I buy your products, where was this survey? I didn't see it!
Who was it directed at? Little anime nerds ages 7-13 no doubt. Not professional comic artists, thats for damn sure.
wa wa wa
Anyway, they gave us a rundown on canson, sorry canSON papers and the company. You could tell they were salesman... I hate those kinds of practiced and rehearsed scenarios, with the powerpoint presentations.. BLAH. We aren't buisness people, we're freaking artists! We don't need to be sold on paper... anyway!
The point is, I took that opportunity to mention my distaste in the horrible Canson fanboy comic board packaging design.
If you haven't seen that crap, check it out: http://www.fanboypaper.com/
Quality paper, belittled.
Protraying comic artists as fat ugly nerds.
Anyhoo, so I told them it was embarrassing to purchase and it was belittling. They yammered on about how they have done surveys and 94% of people found them funny, blah blah.
Don't try and sell me that line! I buy your products, where was this survey? I didn't see it!
Who was it directed at? Little anime nerds ages 7-13 no doubt. Not professional comic artists, thats for damn sure.
wa wa wa
Apr 14, 2009
Fanboy
I love Canson (Fanboy) comic boards, they are nice to sketch on and easy to light table through but what in GODS NAME made them choose that packaging?
They make it look like kids stuff and bad kids stuff. It's quality board being marketed to nerdy little kids. It's embarrassing to be seen with it and it belittles the fine art of sequential story telling.
Why are companies so damn scared to market their comic supplies to adults?
Serious artists doing srsbsns!
It irritates me that even the good quality comic supply companies are treating their own products as a lesser art form, childish and unimportant.
Anyway, I've moved several of my arts over to Artician from Deviantart, but I wont be posting Daqueran on Artician. I don't need one more place to update every monday.
I just finished answering questions for an interview that'll be posted on DeviantART. It's nice being seen as a comic artist now.
Daqueran hit the 40 page mark, whoo hoo!
They make it look like kids stuff and bad kids stuff. It's quality board being marketed to nerdy little kids. It's embarrassing to be seen with it and it belittles the fine art of sequential story telling.
Why are companies so damn scared to market their comic supplies to adults?
Serious artists doing srsbsns!
It irritates me that even the good quality comic supply companies are treating their own products as a lesser art form, childish and unimportant.
Anyway, I've moved several of my arts over to Artician from Deviantart, but I wont be posting Daqueran on Artician. I don't need one more place to update every monday.
I just finished answering questions for an interview that'll be posted on DeviantART. It's nice being seen as a comic artist now.
Daqueran hit the 40 page mark, whoo hoo!
Apr 10, 2009
Artician
I found a new online portfolio site called Artician. And it has the ability to import your entire Deviantart gallery. I think it's worth a check out.
If you are on there already, drop me a line: kitty.artician.com
If you are on there already, drop me a line: kitty.artician.com
Mar 6, 2009
Windsor and Newton WC mediums
Blogspot removed all the peopel i follow, it was very annoying. Cant remember the names of half the peoples I followed blogs D:
What am I missing in peoples blogs because of this glitch!
The injustice!
Anyhoo, in the staffroom today was a cool book by Windsor and Newton, it was called "The Oil Colour book" and it was all about the compnay, their history, how they make the oil colours, the differences bettween all their brands (IE Winton as compared to Windsor and newton artist colours), and all that kinda stuff!
it was so awesome, so I've got my boss trying to find if they have a watercolour version of that book to send us. Apparently Windsor and Newton has an awesome rep and he can probably get it for me if it exists.
For now though, I got some pamphlets from the filing cabnit at work with some articles and things. I even found a colour chart too, which is awesome! I've been wanting a colour chart for a while!!
and in one pamphlet they had a picture of how their tubes looked over the years! Of course I shall share it with you!
I also grabbed a pamphlet on their mediums and while I knew about most of them I learned about a new one called Aquapasto!
Basically it's kind of impasto Medium for Watercolours.
It's not quite like and impasto medium as you would think about it though. It actually just stops colours from blending together. I think It would be something that I'd like to try and Im gonna see if I can find some in an art store somewhere. First I'll check Opus though, though I am sure they dont have it but it's worth a shot. If I cant find it their or at any other local art stores, I'll see if I can get it special ordered from opus. With Special orders though, I dont get my discount and they can take forever and sometimes theres a minimum order requirement. Last resort would be dickblick I guess.
I posted a scan of the pamphlet article for you to read if you want.
I wouldnt mind hearing if anyones used it before and what they think =)
What am I missing in peoples blogs because of this glitch!
The injustice!
Anyhoo, in the staffroom today was a cool book by Windsor and Newton, it was called "The Oil Colour book" and it was all about the compnay, their history, how they make the oil colours, the differences bettween all their brands (IE Winton as compared to Windsor and newton artist colours), and all that kinda stuff!
it was so awesome, so I've got my boss trying to find if they have a watercolour version of that book to send us. Apparently Windsor and Newton has an awesome rep and he can probably get it for me if it exists.
For now though, I got some pamphlets from the filing cabnit at work with some articles and things. I even found a colour chart too, which is awesome! I've been wanting a colour chart for a while!!
and in one pamphlet they had a picture of how their tubes looked over the years! Of course I shall share it with you!
I also grabbed a pamphlet on their mediums and while I knew about most of them I learned about a new one called Aquapasto!
Basically it's kind of impasto Medium for Watercolours.
It's not quite like and impasto medium as you would think about it though. It actually just stops colours from blending together. I think It would be something that I'd like to try and Im gonna see if I can find some in an art store somewhere. First I'll check Opus though, though I am sure they dont have it but it's worth a shot. If I cant find it their or at any other local art stores, I'll see if I can get it special ordered from opus. With Special orders though, I dont get my discount and they can take forever and sometimes theres a minimum order requirement. Last resort would be dickblick I guess.I posted a scan of the pamphlet article for you to read if you want.
I wouldnt mind hearing if anyones used it before and what they think =)
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