Online Portrait and Paper Class

I have shared and shown
on this blog
that 

I have no natural drawing talent. 
I bravely

showed my work from Misty Mawn's class. 
It was plebeian but meant well. teehee. 
Several of you left very supportive comments and I still thank you for that. 
In an attempt to create some drawing skills where next to none exist, 
I signed up for an on line class called Portraits and Paper given by GrittyJane.

I discovered GrittyJane on fb, thru Keli Hanson's Talc page.
Keli I met years ago at Art and Soul in Virginia. 
I kept up with Keli's blog and now fb!! 
BTW friend me on fb!!
I won't bother you, I just love to see pics of works in progress, or hear tell of artful happenings. 

I digress, yet again....

Charcoal drawings: 

I learned so much from this first class, featuring 'front lighting'. Besides Misty's portrait workshop, Gritty Jane's is my first drawing class. I am up to lesson 2, but have done each lesson many times. Even tho my drawings were awful in Misty's class, I will never forget her encouragement and her advice to practice, practice, practice. So that is what I'm doing! 
My second attempt at front lighting, we are drawing from our heads not pictures, I tried to make this drawing look male:

My eyes are pretty terrible but I am working on it! Learning the rules of proportion has been invaluable. I had no idea!
Here are more lighting excercises:

I know, she's got crazy eyes.....

and more front lighting practice:

So there you have it, that's what I've been up to. 
What's in your sketchbook?
xoS

Work in Progress

I am very excited by this new piece!

I went on a transfer binge! This time I used Golden's Soft Gel Gloss medium and Apollo ink-jet transparencies NOT QUICK DRY printed with ink jet images.

OMG what a blast. 

I was a bit manic and ripped thru my stash and stuck to my "mannish" theme and transferred like a crazy wine fueled lonely cat owning spinster. 

Holy Shit! 

I AM a wine fueled cat owning crazy lonely spinster!! 

teehee. I'm cool with it. 

I had to take a break from Mom and Dad's huge canvas. I just haven't been feeling it. I thought I would try and have it done by Mother's day but Father's day is coming up too. So is Labor Day for that matter. teehee.

So, this canvas is 16x20. 

When I was in Misty Mawn's class at Art and Soul, she demonstrated a transfer with paper and Golden's soft gel medium. Hereafter known as GSGM, ok? She brushed the gel onto the corner of the canvas, laid down an image of a tree with branches and leaves, burnished it for like 30 seconds. Lifted it off, and damn if the image didn't stay on the canvas. Regular cheap copy paper and an ink jet image. 

That NEVER happens for me.

NEVER. 

But she is Misty

and the Universe will not allow her to have crappy transfers during a workshop.

Which is how it should be.

I love her and covet her talent. 

So I thought I would try her technique. I have a beautiful catalog of men's clothing with the type of men that I have never met in my life modeling clothes and accessories that I've never seen an actual man wear. 

You know what I mean. 

So I started with a shirt image, love the stripes and the green background. 

As you can see I also used the same technique on ink jet copies of my own art in the upper left corner. Have you done that? You should. Scan your work in progress, not just finished. You can use these scans to do a different piece with the same starting point but with a different end result. Scan the finished piece and cut it up for your own collage. Use your work more and someone else's images less. 

I finally got to this place and it is Good.

I had to learn a lot, to get here, and thankfully I still have a lot more to learn.

Gosh, I am digressing yet again. 

So the next steps were covering the canvas, using the ink jet image transfers. BTW, I use an Epson C88, now discontinued, with Durabright inks, Apollo 7039 transparencies, and GSGM. 

Here's the proof:

The above image has the transparency laid down in the GSGM.Therefore the reflection. Below you see how the ink has transferred to the canvas and the mostly clear transp. is in my hand.

Compared to Misty's, my paper/gel transfer of the shirt came out crappy. You can see how distressed it is. Now look how clear the transparency is. I just have the most success with this method. Also, you can use Elmer's or Ace Caulk instead of the GSGM. I just happen to be out of it.

The only images that are collaged on (full thickness paper glued on with gel medium) are the man with the atom bomb and the Jesus Row. Everything else is a transfer. Just FYI. 
I got rid of that red transparency in the lower corner for now. 

Time to add the color!!

Painting in some details here and there...

So then I added some details like the hearts and golden halos and pencil in the atom bombs....

And here I'm fooling around with some possible additional transfer layers....like the ribs and the anatomical guy in the corner

yeah, I think I'm digging this...

Another choice....

I think I like this one below better....
I'm considering using TAP paper for this head transfer. I just purchased 5 sheets from Amazon for an outrageous price.
I haven't used it before but artists in my ink-jet transfer yahoo group
appear to love it. 
I'm worried about the heat of the iron
melting my transfers. 
Also, I sealed the transfers with
PYM 2
in order to prevent the ink running before adding paint. We're talking inkjet here. The PYM is probable flammable, right? 
I'm worried I'll set my eyebrows on fire. Hey, if that could happen anywhere in The Universe, 
it would happen at my house. Just sayin'.

So this is what I have so far, and I'm loving it, if I do say so myself. I am kicking around an Edgar Allen Poe quote to add also. Remember when I said scan your work and use it again? I struggled gymnastically to get all the areas of this canvas in my scanner. It was quite humorous. Well, before further embellishments make it too "finished" and not usable for another project, I came up with some cool possible backgrounds. 
This one below needs a focal point and some words and it could go in any direction at all....

A little more paint to push the shirt into the background and a focal point....

This one below is an ATC waiting to happen...

 This one below I feel Medieval about....I feel some armor, and a damsel in distress....

I will keep you posted!! I ordered some silk gampi tissue that hasn't arrived, I may wait and do his head with that. I'm concerned about losing detail and transparency, cuz I want the words and test patterns to show thru his face. 
blah blah blah.
Thanks for looking!! 
And Welcome and Thank you to New Followers!!
xoS

No Robert Johnson No Rock and Roll

Go watch this amazingly illustrated short video about Blues Great Robert Johnson. 

The illustrator is 

Christopher Darling.

Do it NOW. 

Please. 

Robert Johnson was born May 8.

If he was still alive he would be 100 years old this year. 

Learn this history of music, It's your history too.

Honor the Beginning.

The Legends who started it all,

but got so little of the credit

deserve your attention.

Can someone help me off my soapbox now?? 

teehee.

Thanks for indulging me.

xoS

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/5/4/1439/robert-johnson-devilish-detail