Colour match - Australian Yellow Green

August 4, 2022

I’m running out of Australian Yellow green. I love this colour and wanted to use it in a painting I’m working on, but when I went to order a large tub of it I found that they had sold out at the store. Bum!

So in this blog I’m going to mix some up using various store bought colours I have in my kit.

First, I’m going to try a mix that I’m really confident will work. Cobalt teal + Cad yellow

The warm cad yellow and bright cobalt teal mixes very close to the Australian Yellow green, and with just a touch of red I was able to get it to almost exactly perfect. Fancy that! Didn’t need to add any white either so that was a good choice.

Now I’m going to see if I can get close with an entirely different set of colours… hmmm, this will challenge me.

Cad orange - this has the red and yellow already mixed together, so now I need a blue…hmmm, a colour I use all the time is Aqua green light so lets see how close this mix gets me:

nope! the white in the light aqua looses some of the brightness - it’s close, but it lacks vibrancy. The cad orange mixed with my first choice of cobalt teal would work though….I think…

what!!! no…it’s not much different than the second mix - this means that the cad orange isn’t a good choice, kind of makes it a bit dull.

ok I’m going to try that light aqua with a different yellow - Indian yellow…and a different red - maybe pink just to be difficult (big smile emoji).

Ohh, wow, that works.

and so as not to waste any paint I’ll pop some on the flowers that I’m working on at the moment.

Flowers…

July 28, 2022

…make a lovely gift, are generally lovely to have around and are also really fun to paint. Little flower paintings make great gifts too, and painting for a gift a gift of flowers is painting a gift of a gift which creates a lasting memory of the gift of flowers given for whatever occasion or reason.

The first time I painted a gift of flowers was for a friend. She’d received the most gorgeous bunch of flowers from her friend when her beloved dad passed at the grand old age of 90something. Her birthday was coming up so I photographed them while they were fresh and later painted them for her birthday - this created a a lasting memory of the beautiful gift from her friend and a gift for her from me at the same time.

Since then I’ve taken to painting little flower paintings of flower gifts as they come along. Mostly these are small sketches in my sketchbook that double up as diary entries when I date them and make a note of what occasion they celebrated.

Pat (my youngest) is a circus performer), has received cute little jars of flowers after performances a few times now and I preserve that memory with a little painting of them.

I painted the proteas I got for Christmas’s last year from Mareka, I painted a bunch of lavender cut from the garden (a plant I grew from a cutting given to me by my neighbour who was an excellent gardener - it was my first successful lavender plant and still stands to this day), I’ve painted a lily and large leaf also cut from the garden given to me from my mother-in-law as a bulb before the kids were born - (they come up every year to remind me of her and the laughs we use to share)…a white rose dad cut for mum from his amazing garden and popped it in a vase to decorate the tray of breakfast-in-bed for her on mothers day, the stunning orchids Deb gave me for painting her son, the gorgeous and huge pink rose Kylie gave from her garden, a bunch of flowers I bought from the supermarket just because, the little pot plant Pat got for her birthday from her bestie, dad’s pride and joy peace Lilly…it goes on, I’m up to “flowers no 14”.

To keep myself in supply of source material I photograph little gifts of flowers when they present themselves to me in whatever way, make a note of them and pop them in a folder and slowly I’m finding that flowers are becoming part of the body of work that I create, and each one has it’s own story…the only thing I need to remember to do is make a note on the photos of the story of the flowers so I can make a note if it when it comes to painting them…either that or they just get labeled, “flowers no. …”

Light Red Ochre...

July 21, 2022

…is an earthy colour that on first appearances looks alot like Burnt Sienna. The main difference is that it’s pinker in colour and it’s fully opaque where burnt Sienna is semi opaque.

I haven’t used this colour much but found I had some in my acrylic kit when I grabbed a few random colours for some abstract play. Vermillion, light red ochre, carbon black and Australian yellow green + white is what I grabbed and thought I’d make the study about vermillion, but it ended up being more about the red ochre.

The opaque quality of this colour gives great coverage and gives a very different effect than semi transparent paints, kind of looks more like a gouache when dried, I think…I need to explore that abit more.

I liked the colour so much I did a little skin study with it using just the red ochre and white, with a touch of pre mixed grey for interest.

What I noticed about the opaqueness is that it gives a great illusion of dark, such that you can’t get with semi transparent and transparent colours.

I thought I’d better check my observations with a quick burnt sienna study…

even though the semi transparent burnt sienna is a darker colour than the opaque light red ochre, the darker values feel to me like they are in the red ochre painting not the burnt sienna, but my eyes are telling me that they look like they are in the burnt sienna painting. Is my pre-concieved bias interfering I wonder…

to test this theory I will convert the image to grey scale…

hmmmm…. the more surprising difference is in the lighter parts - there’s more variation in the light side of the burnt sienna painting than I thought and less in the light side of the red ochre one.

fancy that!

Also, I recorded the process of the dingo dreaming, for the record:

Cropping is…

July 14, 2022

…something you can’t do if you’re painting onto a pre-stretched canvas. You can, however, easily crop work that is on paper or loose canvas sheet and then frame or mount that cropped work so it can be hung. Doing this makes cropping part of the finishing process of the work of art.

Ofcourse you can always digitally crop images of your work and make prints, and/or post those cropped images on social media which is one of the wonderful things about this new digital platform on which we hang our art work.

For example, below is my latest collection of abstract paintings, these are done with mixed media in my sketchbook. The theme for these is Vermilion.

Exhibit 1

My Vemillion collection is all cropped from the one page in my sketchbook - shown below.

I can’t physically hang this collection in it’s original form though because I’ve doubled up on some of the areas for the different paintings, but I could re-paint them, even in a larger format if I wanted to.

I’ve been playing with this concept, in-between my other work, all week and it’s been alot of fun.

exhibit 2

Exhibit 3

Where I will go from here is take my favourite crop and see if I can re-create it onto a larger format.

What fun!!

thinking abstract...

July 7, 2022

is different from the kind of thinking needed when painting something using a reference, (reference meaning a photo or from life, like a still-life vase of flowers, or actual person sitting, kind-of-thing).

I’m mostly interested in painting things, and I always use a reference for them - faces, portraits, animals, people, flowers, jars, even the occasional tree, landscape… and I get a likeness by observing the tones, the light areas and dark areas, of whatever it is I’m looking at.

Although my representational paintings are always semi-abstracted, sometimes even quite unearthly looking, they are still things that I’m representing with as much likeness to the reference that I can create by observing the light and dark shapes of tone in the reference I’m using, but at the same time allowing outrageous freedom to deviate in my colour choices, mark making, and composition.

So, when breaking down the process to just paint marks, colour and composition with no representation of anything, I’ve got one less thing to hold on to and it’s like walking backwards, or walking with eyes closed or… humming a song without words…no…not even that…maybe more like singing words to represent the tune of a music piece that hasn’t got any words - like Beethoven’s famous Fur Elise - try singing that tune using made up words off of the top of your head- and record yourself singing it then write those spontaneous words down in reverse, refine it so it rhymes in places, replace every 10th word with a new word, and put some punctuation in after that word only, and a semi-colon after every 10th word, then sing it to the tune of Fur Elise but in an entirely different key and that’s your painting - conceptually speaking.

That’s what it feels like to me creating abstract.

What you come up with, in the spur of the moment, is quite bizarre and often hideous and needs refining and refining until you have something visually pleasing that stands on it’s own as a work of visual poetry, something that’s more about the words themselves than a story they might tell.

It doesn’t make sense at first impression, but there’s method to the process and the method makes sense, so in the end what you see is a description of the method, not the description of a literal thing like a tree or animal…I think.

This first layer of my abstract is hideous, but just chucking something down with whatever’s in reach without thinking is the reference for the next part of the painting, and so on snd so on until it’s completed.

I don’t love it but I don’t mind the completed work - so what did I learn?

It takes layers to get enough variety for an interesting painting.

There’s more interest when things aren’t perfect - like messy edges, and muddled scribbles look good next to cleanly painted shapes.

One abstract isn’t enough, I’ve got 3 more on the go and I played around with this next one on the kitchen table after dinner.

Letting the paint dry between layers is necessary for abstract because without a reference the underpainting layers more often than not need to be drastically changed.

Cropping the abstract and framing it looks pleasing to me, but I’m not confident that it’ll please anyone else. It’s much harder to self critique your own work if there’s no reference to refer to.

It’s so much fun and the possibilities are endless.

Making abstract art you can defy all and every rule, so it gives an opportunity to explore and play with materials, concepts, ideas, and use up any leftover paint and bits and pieces lying around making it a process for recycling.

Try it.

it's 12:53pm and...

June 30, 2022

I’ve just walked into the studio after what seemed like a busy morning where it seems like I haven’t done anything at all.

what have I done, exactly?

…made daughters lunch - got her to school, gone shopping with husband (had coffee in cafe), cooked, did a few loads of washing, sorted dried washing, cleaned and tidied Pat’s room where I found the dog had vomited on the floor, fed the chickens, printed some stuff for husband…just remembered that I need to pay a bill (I’ll do that now, hang on…)

…paid bill and created a new folder (using a literal folder with metal rings in the middle) for materials purchased 2022/23…like it’s tax time and I’ve been meaning to be more organised, so new tax year begins with a new set of folders and new way of keeping my books in order… …it’s now 1:44pm.

All that stuff that doesn’t get seen in an art business - behind the scene stuff that takes time and has nothing to do with art yet it’s necessary for an art business - if art can even be a business, and maybe when art is a business it’s not art anymore but manufacturing…I’m overthinking this aren’t I!

I turn to my easel…what have I got here..?…a wet mess and a dry mess. Not what I’m suppose to be working on.

What I’m suppose to be working on is a commission which I will do a bit on every day until it’s finished. I ended up working on it for about 40 minutes and then had to pick up Pat from school and drop her at her circus classes…

close up…

of part of the painting I’m working on

later…

10:37am, Friday morning.

I have an idea.

I inherited a lovely music book along with a piano from my Aunty Pat’s estate. I’ve been having fun learning some new tunes from various youtube tutorials, so much easier than trying to work out from the written music, and I’m going to use this lovely 1939 edition, hardcover music book as an art book for abstract ideas - yes I’m going to paint and draw in it over the written notes and transform it into a new work of art.

The first marks are going to be the hardest, because I do feel a bit bad about defacing this beautifully preserved book, but I’m also recycling and repurposing it, so I shouldn’t feel too bad either.

I’m going to choose a page that’s a little in from the first pages so that I can relax and not worry about creating a fabulous first impression when someone opens the book to have a look.

My first entry -

On one page I put down some light grey gesso which I will paint over when it dries and on the other page I used paint, pen, collage and a sponge to make an abstract design. I may add some more to it when it’s dry… but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

While that’s drying I shall get back to my commission…after I make a cup of tea and change out of my walking shoes which are a little damp from the beach walk I did earlier this morning…

…and post this weekly blog.

…a few hours later and I’m feeling pretty chuffed.

I picked up an unfinished…

June 24, 2022

…abstract and finished it today.

When I picked it up I intended to do some warm up painting before I continued working on a commissioned painting. I wanted to test a few colour mixes and because this abstract had been annoying me for many weeks, I picked it up not expecting to achieve anything much - it was one of those paintings that I kept working on and changing, turning upside down and rewriting…like first it was rocks in a landscape , then it was trees in a landscape, then some cows in a copse of trees, then a smaller cow on some rocks then a really big cow in front of a fence…kind-of-thing.

Anyway…for weeks and weeks it got nowhere. I was stuck. It didn’t matter that I was stuck because it wasn’t important. It was an ugly looking work, too dark, gloomy, messy, odd, unbalanced, confused. It wasn’t for anyone, not for any project or any purpose - but I kept going back to it, it was my in-between paintings painting. My little dumping ground….

But today I finished it. I got in a flow and finally found a path I could take out of the mess to make it work and it quickly came together. So I did just enough to complete it before I moved on to other work.

Done.

I’ll not touch it again except for the back…and to sign and date it…

…and find myself a new dumping ground.

I've spent the last few weeks…

June 16, 2022

…trying to be a bit more intuitive in my painting process. Letting an idea appear out of seemingly nowhere and applying that idea as quickly as possible to whatever it is I’m working on so I don’t over-think it too much. Once applied and concrete I can then think about it, assess what I’ve done and observe my reaction to it. The thinking about it after I’ve done it, and observing my reaction to it, is the key here because it stops me before the next idea can be applied which might obliterate the idea I just finished applying and actually quite liked for whatever reason.

It’s the opposite to life where we should think about what we are going to do before we do it, so as not to harm the things around us.

Painting, however, is the perfect place to deliberately inflict harm on the subject and then gently resolve it.

Sounds weirder than it actually is.

You can’t really paint something representational without thinking about it though. Like trying to paint a portrait with a good likeness to the subject while painting intuitively sounds like what an oxymoron should be, and maybe it is…unless that part of the painting process is automatic maybe? Like… you know it so well that you don’t have to think about it? “Unconscious competence” (big smile emoji) ….hmmmm… now I’m wondering if it is possible to drive intuitively…or is that more instinctively…you know, where you’re driving away, thinking about everything except the task at hand and get to your destination and you can’t remember all the details of how you actually got there. I know it’s not just me that does that.

hmmmm….now I’m wondering what’s the difference between instinctively and intuitively? (checking google)

-”instinct is something that is in you. A born behavior that is activated when you interact with certain triggers and stimuli. It is something that you can’t turn on and off. Your instinct is your protector factor. It controls your anxiety levels, your responses to new or unknown things, and the awareness of the moments that you need bold and brave.”

-”Your intuition is based on experiences and helps cultivate the “Myself” (the soul). Your intuition is fueled by life experiences, whether good or bad. It gives you the awareness of the pros and cons of a situation. It helps you create solutions or cause problems.”

ahhh, instinct is activated and intuition is cultivated.

maybe that means that you can develop your intuition.

What’s exciting for me now is that the painting process is getting more interesting the more I do it - and I do mean interesting, like there’s a million puzzles to be solved if I let them emerge out of the initial idea of their own accord - my intuition is “helping me cause problems and create solutions”.

I want to test...

June 8, 2022

…the strength of acrylic painting medium to see if it does what I think it does.

How I’m going to do this is add some medium to paint and make a transparent wash using very thin medium, I’ll then thin some more paint with water and compare them when they are dry - I also want to test thinned down paint with water then when that’s dry wash on the same medium over the top, so the medium dries on top of it not mixed in with it. When it’s all dry I can test the binding strength of each by scrubbing them with a wet brush and see if they hold.

Using the same paint I’ve made two squares of wash thinned with water and 1 square of wash thinned with medium (the middle one), and I notice that while they are wet they all look much the same.

perhaps there is a slight difference in how the brush marks are held in place with the medium but merge together a bit more with the water (like water paint).

Now I will give it some time to really dry and then brush some medium over the top of one of the watered down washes ( this is called sealing it), and then I’ll let it really dry overnight before I do the scrub test.

The results are this - the paint thinned with just water rubs off with a little effort, the paint thinned with medium needs a fair bit more effort to move the paint, but the paint sealed with medium doesn’t move at all with a hard scrub, which is a little surprising, but makes sense thinking about it.

Imagine the strength of paint thinned with medium then sealed with more of it - practically bullet proof!