I woke up this morning thinking I must get a flour dredger to use for adding sand to my paintings. Which is odd as I've not painted with sand in over 10 years. In fact probably more like 15 years or more...
The way I was painting at the time of this tree involved a lot of acrylic medium and sand to make an interesting texture on the surface of the canvas. I always worried that it would fall off later but none of the pictures I did this way seem to have lost any bits. Painting onto the sandy surface was amazing, it was much more porus than canvas and the colours came out very rich, but it did use a lot of paint.
I'd been given the idea on a weekend art course but not shown any examples. So I piled on the sand. When I later went to exhbitions of the teacher's paintings I saw that she'd meant just a tiny scattering. On that course she'd also warned me about painting from good photos so I did this one from a terribly blurry one... The teacher was Ros Cuthbert.
Andrea has posted a really inspiring article today on how she does her paintings. She paints a sort of colour negative first!
And before I'd had a chance to finish writing this blog entry the photo of this picture on flickr has already been "favorited" so I guess I'm getting some encouragement to get out my acryilcs soon!
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17 comments:
I'm defnitely interested in the collaborative idea Caroline (just replied on Camel). It's a grand idea, one I would agree is worth exploring. Anyway it sounds fun. No idea where to start mind you!
By the way, I like the idea of texture in painting. Sand sounds like a good way of livening up acrylic paint, which can look a bit flat sometimes. The maple is lovely, especially the effect of the leaves - where is the sand?
I hope you've got my myrid replies on camel...
I applied sand all over this picture and then painted over it - the surface is very bumpy and it made a much more interesting surface than my previous acrylic paintings.
This painting is gorgeous! You should definitely take this up again!
Very gorgeous. This reminds me of a Group of Seven painting (a Canadian group of 7 painters including Emily Carr and someone Thompson) that's quite famous. You need a gallery, girl!
This is gorgeous! Even my husband commented on it as he walked by.
Thanks Shane - I like trees too... they may be still but they have a wild energy...
Rose - thanks - this was sort of the high point on my previous paintings and I was feeling intimidated at ever doing anything I liked as much as again - but blogging and playing in Painter seems to have cleared that block.
Wandering Coyote - I used to have secret ambitions to get into a particular gallery in Bristol - it had such good work there (no point in aiming low !) but its closed (soon after a friend of mine who worked there left) and I haven't found another place that enthuses me (yet). Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Toni - thanks and thanks to your husband too!
Such a great picture Caroline!
Beautiful, Caro. I've been enjoying all the posts and pics. I missed.
The lightbulb gremlin reminds me of story one of my little cousins used to bore us with, about a lightbulb that turned into a war tank :-(
In a comment to one of your archived entries yesterday, I mentioned a site that collects and displays old abandoned photos. You may be interested in wandering around it a bit:
http://www.moderna.org/lookatme/
Beautiful tree, by the way.
word veri: urtrn - your turn?
i cannot comment earlier and even my site's color was changed without me changing it but later on, it was back to normal.
I have always love looking at this tree. You have done a great job caroline. I haven't tried doing this technique, I might one of these days.
great idea to add sand on paintings! the weirdest idea i came upon with paint was using chewing gums! 8)
Stumbled in here from some comment trail and I'm not sure which of your blogs I like best. I'll be coming back to both.
Thanks TP
GG - I hope my gremlins haven't got plans on turning the light bulbs into anything but especially not war tanks and there you go putting ideas into their heads!
Melba - thank you - I will soon... though whether I show the results here depends on what comes out!
Reluctant Nomad - I'll check it out thanks!
Isay - thanks for returning! Do have a go it changes the medium totally.
Atomicvelvetsigh - thanks - I've not seen chewing gum but it would probably be quite durable as its so hard to remove! And in case you look here again I left you a not under my IF - Cats posting!
Wenda - welcome! Do come back and chat!
What a beautiful image of the fall-like tree--mmmm! Mary :-)
Thank you for the link, Caroline! I'm so behind on my blog reading that I just read this now. I think I already commented on this one at Flickr but let me just give my thumbs up again while I'm here.
BEAUTiful amazing painting!
Thank for all the encouragement - I plan to start some paintings soon but I've discovered I'll need new paints... the old ones are hard as nails!
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