Friday 13 January 2012

Hmmm

Okay, I finished the first lesson of the workshop with Traci Bautista. I must admit: I'm not crazy about the result. I'm not crazy about the process either. I like making backgrounds and trying out stencils and stamps and paint techniques, but if I have to doodle with the sole purpose of doodling, I kind of get a "doodle-block". I have to be able to really draw something, not just make circles and stripes and marks.

Anyway, I'll post the Work-in-Progress pictures. I have taken the habit of making WIP-pictures of paintings since last year, and I always like to see the very first beginnings.

The first step: stencilling. This was fun!

second step: adding acrylic paint and washes

Here's  where it started to go wrong: adding the oil pastels. I rubbed it out with my fingers, and as a result I got oil pastels over most of the page.

Added some more acrylics, and went way over the top with Chinese ink. It got too dark because of that, and I discovered that I couldn't go over the oil pastel with the ink. Smuggled in some fish and birds.

The end result. Scribbled something on it with markers, but didn't use my paint markers because the oil pastels would ruin them. Tried to lighten it up with white dots, but overall don't really like the result.

What did I learn?

- I don't like doodling when it's just about doodling. I like to use doodles in my backgrounds, and in small amounts, but not as an end result. I don't like scribbling either.
- I will never ever use oil pastels again if I also want to use markers. When you use markers, they should always be used before the oil pastels (unless of course, you are blessed with money growing on your back).

I'm not sure whether I'll try the second week of the workshop. I didn't like Traci's end result, so I don't even want to think about how mine would look. I'll have to watch the video again, it might be fun to play a bit with water colors. Don't have much experience with that kind of paint.

And for a nice ending: here's the painting that my daughter produced:

After seeing my disaster with the Chinese ink, she wisely decided not to use it...

1 comment:

Thanks for taking the time to comment! I love hearing your thoughts about my work. Because I am getting too many spammer comments, l have to use Captcha, sorry. Hope this is not a problem for you !