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Stipple Paper by Bee Paper

marylizingramart —  May 27, 2011 — Leave a comment

Smooth, sandy, rough, scratchy, thick, thin…and stippled! As I’ve said many times before, there is a plethora of pastel surfaces and textures upon which great art can be made. The newest paper sample I’ve tried is from Bee Paper Company and is called “Stipple Paper,” thanks to my friends at Forstall Art Center. The paper feels smooth and slick to the touch, with a finely pebbled surface. I decided to try a small portrait with several types of pastels to get a good feel for this new texture.

Here is my result:

5×51/2 Soft Pastel on Stipple Paper

I used five types of pastels: my usual favorite, the very soft Sennelier Pastels; the slightly harder soft pastels by Rembrandt; a variety of soft pastel pencils; a black Conte pastel; and an inexpensive set of square soft pastels.

To compare the application, on the image below I used all five: starting from the top left, the black is the square pastel, then the Sennelier in the top center, bottom right is Rembrandt, bottom left is the Conte. I sketched out the mage in a brown pastel pencil. All pastels adhered well with minimal excess dust.

I rubbed some blues in with my finger to begin the sidewalk, and filled in the black.

I finished up the piece by using Sennelier to finish the background, pastel pencils and Rembrandts for the face, Rembrandts with Sennelier highlights for the hair, and Sennelier for the shirt and clover. I was pleased with the result of the Stipple Paper and appreciate that all the types of pastel worked so well. I also enjoyed the sleek yet pebbled texture, and prefer it over the spotty texture you get from a traditional piece of pastel paper, such as Canson or Mi Tientes. From a sillier place in my mind, I like the paper because of its name…”Stipple Paper”…its just fun to say!

In Alabama, Art, artist, bee, Bee Paper, Birmingham, Conte, Forstall, Ingram, Liz, Mary, Paper, pastel pencils, pastels, portrait, Rembrandt, Sennelier, soft pastel, Stipple Paper, texture
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The Village Art Festival

marylizingramart —  May 24, 2011 — Leave a comment

About a week ago, on that unusually cold Southern Spring weekend, I participated in the first Village Art Festival at Brookwood Mall in Birmingham, Alabama. Wonderfully organized by the Birmingham Art Association and the mall, for me the show was a success. My booth was full of art and placed outside, across from restaurants and a flowing fountain.

As “supervisor” of the Kids Zone, I have to brag on the organizers whose creativity and forethought set up the best and smoothest kid’s art area I have ever seen. The families who participated had a blast, and were very excited to take home their own art supplies!

My large pastel “Shepherd’s Hut” finally found a home, and I made lots of great connections to other artists and art lovers.

I also acquired a sample of pastel cloth to experiment with, courtesy of a new friend whose art will be highlighted in a post to come!

A second show is being planned for next year…I recommend participation to artists and the public!

In Alabama, Art, art show, artist, Birmingham, Birmingham Art Association, Brookwood Mall, Ingram, Liz, Mary, pastels, sheep, Show, soft pastel, Village Art Festival
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Colourfix Suede

marylizingramart —  May 6, 2011 — 1 Comment

Recently my friends at Forstall Art Supply gave me a sample of the very new pastel paper Colourfix Suede to try out. At first touch, it feels like a smooth suede, as the name suggests, very different from the rough sanded textures I usually choose. 

My first experience with the paper showed me that certain pastels and techniques work better than others. Using very soft Sennelier pastels, I found that the softer, creamier pastels adhere better than harder pastels; a lighter touch yields better results than my usual heavy-handed layering.

4 1/2 x 7 soft pastel on Colourfix Suede

While it did hold layers well, more blending occurred than on sanded papers, maybe less blending than basic pastel papers (paper sans coatings). 

I had trouble getting my beloved Sennelier black pastel to adhere.

Unsatisfied with my first attempt, I did a bit of research and found that Colourfix Suede is great for the delicate Pan Pastels and fans of pastel application via soft tools and fingers (toothier surfaces can irritate fingers and damage applicators). Pastel pencils are also supposed to work well on the fine surface. Because the suede surface is applied to a watercolor paper, an underpainting (using paint to create a colored base for the pastel piece) is said to work well on this paper. 

With this new information, I tried a second piece, using several techniques and types of pastels.

4×4 Soft Pastel on Colourfix Suede

For the sky I applied the pastel with my fingers, rubbing the Sennelier pastel color onto the paper. This is as close as I could get to a Pan Pastel application. Again, the creamier pastels transferred more color. I used pastel pencils and Rembrandt pastels for the landscape. The pencils went on the paper well, and I was very surprised at how much color adhered with the Rembrandts, which are a harder pastel and usually not my favorite. The black went on darkly like I wanted, even over layers of pastel. On this paper, I would definitely reach for my Rembrandts!

As usual, I will say that all surfaces, pastels and combinations of the two yield different results. If you want a paper that will hold layers and result in a creamy, smooth painting, this paper is for you! If I use this paper in the future, I will draw with Rembrandt pastels and save my Senneliers for my sanded papers and boards.

Colourfix Suede is available in 6 colors, and black and white.

In Alabama, Art, artist, Birmingham, blending, Colourfix, Forstall, Ingram, landscape, Liz, Mary, painting, Pan Pastels, Paper, pastels, Rembrandt, Sennelier, soft pastel, suede, texture
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Cecily Hill Lowe…Chill Art

marylizingramart —  May 4, 2011 — 1 Comment

Check out the acrylic abstract art by Birmingham artist, and one of my sweet friends, Cecily Hill Lowe! She uses acrylic wash on watercolor paper and canvas, and they range in size from tiny to large. Visit her site at Chill Art to see her many beautiful paintings!

In abstract, acrylic, Alabama, Art, artist, Birmingham, Cecily Hill Lowe, Chill Art
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Hipstamatic Inspiration

marylizingramart —  April 26, 2011 — 3 Comments

Sometimes you find new inspiration in unexpected places. Bored with the same old style of my art, last Fall I found bold new colors and the freedom to enhance what is seen thanks to a text message joke from my sister. As children, we had this joke (which will probably sound lame, but we thought it a hilarious trick). We took lots of road trips back then and whenever we saw a hay bale, we’d say “Hay, (insert name).” If the chosen trick-victim said “what?” the trickster would giggle and giggle and point at the hay bale, exclaiming “I got you!” I told you…a little lame, an inside joke, but it was funny to us. As adults, let’s just say it may or may not still happen…

Now bringing my ramblings to a point: on the way back from a family beach trip, my sister texted me the picture below with “Hay (omitting funny childhood nickname) Mary Liz!” She had snapped the photo out of the window with the Hipstamatic App on her iPhone.

Hay Bales, 12×16 soft pastel

Her little joke set me on a new course full of turquoise and golden skies, darkening edges, simple photos from our region of the world. Since that day, I have taken a whole collection of pictures from rural Alabama and love finding inspiration in alternative colors thanks to Hipstamatic. If you are unfamiliar with this camera app, it is a program you can purchase very inexpensively on smart phones that allows you to change combinations of lens and film to get different colors and effects. My favorites are the John S lens and the Bettie XL lens. I love experimenting with it…you never know when you’ll get something new and fabulous! It is a great asset to my artwork. Below is another example of a different lens/film combination.

In Alabama, Art, artist, bale, Birmingham, camera, film, hay, Hipstamatic, Ingram, iPhone, landscape, lens, Liz, Mary, pastels, Rural, Sennelier, soft pastel
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Easter Reflection

marylizingramart —  April 24, 2011 — Leave a comment

“Resurrection. The reversal of what was thought to be absolute. The turning of midnight into dawn, hatred into love, dying into living anew.

If we look more closely into life, we will find that resurrection is more than hope, it is our experience. The return to life from death is something we understand at our innermost depths, something we feel on the surface of our tender skin. We have come back to life, not only when we start to shake off a shroud of sorrow that has bound us, but when we begin to believe in all that is still, endlessly possible.

We give thanks for all those times we have arisen from the depths or simply taken a tiny step toward something new. May we be empowered by extraordinary second chances. And as we enter the world anew, let us turn the tides of despair into endless waves of hope.”

-Molly Fumia

In Alabama, Art, Birmingham, Easter, Ingram, landscape, Liz, Mary, Molly Fumia, Pastel Ground, resurrection, sheep, soft pastel, stream
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Thistle

marylizingramart —  April 21, 2011 — Leave a comment

 

About a week ago, while running errands with my family, on a persistent whim I decided I wanted one of the several thistles scattered along the shoulder of the road. As with most “whims,” there was not much reason for it…I just saw a tall, spiky, blooming thistle and became briefly obsessed with pulling one out of the ground. Partly driven by nostalgia, remembering a trip from my youth when my parents pulled over and showed my sister and I a thistle, partly driven by an “educational opportunity” for my own children (and humor at hearing my daughter say “thithle” with her slight lisp), and partly driven by an artistic impetus, I cajoled my husband into making two loops on a busy road so I could pop out of the car and pull up my coveted thistle.

It was one of my finer moments: dressed in nice clothes, climbing out of a little mini van, carrying a brightly striped child’s pullover (for spike-protection), dashing down a weed covered hill, watched by a whole intersection of onlookers merging off and onto the interstate, I quickly yanked up a thistle before scurrying back to the car with my strange prize. I’m sure I looked totally normal…

When I got close to my chosen thistle, which was much larger than I expected, I had a moment of panic that after all this trouble, in front of all these anonymous commuters, I wouldn’t be able to pull it up, and there I would be tugging in vain before retreating to the car in shameful surrender. To my relief, it came up with a quick snap.

My thistle has been blooming steadily all week in it’s little jar of water and giving me lots of opportunity to draw it, observe it, and reflect upon why I am fascinated by this odd plant.

At once both soft and jagged, with downy coverings and serrated thorns; both beautiful and dangerous, with soft red tufts of flower tempting the touch, while fingers must weave cautiously through the plentiful thorns. Strikingly harsh with it’s stiff, sharp leaves, and artistically intriguing with it’s curving, striated stems and colorful urns of flower. An unlikely place to find beauty, grace found among thorns.

Here are my impressions/studies of the thistle; I plan on trying it again soon with some different techniques.

3 Studies of a Thistle, 5×7 soft pastel on card coated with pastel ground

In Art, Impressionism, pastels , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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A Re-Do with Bob Ross and Michelangelo

marylizingramart —  April 17, 2011 — Leave a comment

When teaching art classes, especially to children, I like to encourage them not to use an eraser. As Bob Ross said so often, “happy accidents” happen a lot in art and “mistakes” can be turned into something else, often improving a picture beyond the original conception. We could talk about the beauty of unplanned discoveries, the surprises found in the creative process…

But sometimes, you just want to start over. Sometimes you need some major changes.

When you spend so much on a high-quality, archival surface, it hurts to waste it, but you can’t make a whole new picture on top of an old one in pastel, right? I mean, of course you can paint over a painting in acrylic or oil, but surely not pastel…it would smear and blend! Or would it? My answer: it depends upon your surface and the thickness of the pastel already applied.

On paper, if the pastel has been applied lightly, you can have a “re-do” without too much trouble, depending on how well the new subject meshes with the old. On papers, the pastel blends and smears a bit more and new layers to not adhere as easily, which can be frustrating. Since paper is more inexpensive than other textured surfaces, it may be your best bet just to start a new piece.

If you use a sanded paper, such as Sennelier La Carte Pastel Card, the textured surface allows you to add a heavier amount of pastel on top of pastel due to the gritty surface that grips the color and prevents as much unwanted smearing/blending. Wallis Paper allows you to gently wash off some of the pastel, and also has a sandy surface to hold more pastel, but you have to be gentle and let it dry thoroughly since it is a type of paper/card.

If you use a sturdy, textured Ampersand Pastelbord, you have several options. You can a) wash it off in the sink and let it dry, b)use a kneaded eraser and pull up a lot of the pastel (a good technique for any of the above surfaces), or c) just draw right on top of it, which is what I did with the picture below. I was drawing some sheep on a gray Pastelbord, and just wasn’t “feeling it.” I didn’t want to draw sheep on it anymore, so I “buried” them under a Celtic stone. I had already applied several layers of mostly white and black for the sheep, and had even redrawn the sheep in some different positions, before I began the cross. But, as you can see by the detail picture below, it did not hurt the texture or amount of pastel I applied later.

Celtic Stone, 8×10 Soft Pastel on board

Detail of Celtic Stone

The other night, my husband and I were watching a PBS show “Secrets of the Dead: Michelangelo Revealed.” In the show, they showed how Michelangelo made great alterations to finished marble sculptures, such as the Moses found at the tomb of Pope Julius II. Michelangelo recarved Moses to turn his head in a whole different direction. In stone! If Michelangelo can have a re-do with stone, surely we can in pastel!

In Alabama, Ampersand, Art, Birmingham, Bob Ross, Celtic, Correction, Ingram, Liz, Mary, Michelangelo, mistake, Paper, Pastelbord, pastels, Sennelier, soft pastel, Stone, texture, Wallis
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Spot the difference! A lesson in pastel corrections

marylizingramart —  April 15, 2011 — 1 Comment

Many times, especially at art shows, I am asked about the fragility of pastels. True, if you wipe your hand across an unframed picture, you will smear it. True, if it rains on a picture, it will mess it up. BUT…you can fix it! There have been several big “accidents” in my 3 years of pastel-painting:

1) when spraying a fixative on a 4×4 portrait with a can of spray that was clearly running out, I gave it a test and decided to go for it and ignore the omen of splatters. I gave it a quick spray…um, make that a big splatter. After chunking the can across the yard and kicking a newspaper (to my neighbors’ amusement, I am sure), I took my darkened and spotty picture inside and touched it right up with some light layers of flesh tones and any needed details. Frustrating, yes; big deal to correct, not so much.

2) After delivering a finished pastel to a client, the piece fell victim to a big drip of rain water off of her porch. She brought it by and it was quite a drip– a big, dark circle right in the center of the subject. I took it in the art room while she waited, and in a matter of minutes it was repaired. I just covered the dried spot right up with the same color blue.

3) One of my “precious” (note sarcasm here) cats decided it would be a fabulous idea to jump on my art table, walk on a very large pastel painting, put black footprints in the sky, scratch down the middle as the picture slid, and slide right down off the side. Awesome. I found the culprit by inspecting dirty, furry feet. In this case, I blew off the excess dust outside, then went to work layering the appropriate color pastel to cover up the paw-prints and smears. Good as new (but maybe not my mood)!

I’ve gotten a bit more careful, especially when spraying. I steer clear of rainy days and keep my pastels inside or covered; I make sure to seal them up to keep fingers (and cats) off of them.

Recently, I have used this comfortable knowledge of pastel’s ability to cover mistakes to make some alterations to a commissioned piece. Before I began the Spanish Steps (30×30 pastel), the decision over whether or not to include flowers on the steps was not firm. I told my clients that I could add them later if they wanted, after they saw the finished piece. We did decide to add some red flowers, and while doing so I made a few other corrections. Below is the piece with alterations, and the piece before the additions. Pastel covers well, and is not as fragile as you may think! How many differences can you spot?

In Alabama, Art, Birmingham, commission, Correction, flower, fountain, Ingram, Italy, Liz, Mary, mistake, pastels, Rome, Sennelier, soft pastel, Spanish Steps
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Good Creation

marylizingramart —  April 12, 2011 — Leave a comment

In our family, we read a short passage before our meals from A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. This morning during breakfast, my daughter asked if we could read one, and this was the next “blessing” on the page…very fitting thoughts for an art blog, and for all those who create some form of art, which, to me, is anyone and everyone.

Holy Creator,
thank you for artists:
visual, verbal,
musical, kinesthetic,
spiritual…
Within their creative process
may we recognize
the divine in all creation
and be moved to awe
and wonder and worship.
-Chris Glaser

In Art, artist, blessing, Chris Glaser, creation, creative
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