Playful Artwork

"Sun and Shadows in the Garden"
acrylic on Wallis paper
9" x 12"

Sometimes you just gotta play -- grab that sense of when we were kids and mucked around in the dirt making mudpies or climbed trees and caught lightening bugs in jars (only to let them go at bedtime, of course)!

I did this piece a few weeks ago working on Wallis archival sanded paper, which is used mostly for pastels. But it's a powerful piece of paper coming in at 200 lbs. and can take watermedia and oils. This was a warm-up piece to flex the muscles and loosen up. Having worked with silks dyeing for many years, I also used coarse salt with the watery acrylics and got these marvelous "blooms" scattered around the surface. I left quite a bit of white, too. It just seemed to lighten the whole piece.

I made it a point to step away before I began to "fiddle" too much and let it dry, moving on to other paintings. At the end of the day when I returned to this, it brought a smile to my face. Why? I guess because it reminded me of those summer gardens of childhood with the dappled sunlight and shadows flowing about the shrubbery.

Happy summer and enjoy the weekend! We finally have sun here and about 80 degrees -- thank goodness! This past June here in CT averaged 27 days of rain. Ugh.

Exploring Art Techniques

"Summer River"
12" x 9"
acrylic on Wallis paper

Breaking away, exploring, experimenting, testing the waters of the strange and unusual -- sounds more like science fiction than art!

Last weekend I dedicated 2 whole days (almost) to working on some methods I had been thinking of for some time now. I wanted to combine the lush sensibilities of working on paper but with more "umph," shall we say?

I used some Japanese nujabi watercolor paper at about 185 lbs. and also had some Wallis archival sanded paper (200 lbs. also), which is meant for pastel work. Because of their heft and toughness, I felt I could truly abuse the surfaces more than usual.

"Summer River" is an example of working with acrylics, lots (!) of water and sprayed rubbing alcohol (just a bit), and continual layers of paint worked into the surface while still wet and dripping.

The acrylics seemed to love this sanded surface, although the brushes took a beating -- I learned that quickly and switched to old, stubby things just laying around.

This next painting -- "Grey Wetlands" -- was worked on nujabi paper, a handmade Japanese watercolor paper with beautiful deckled edges on all 4 sides. This I worked more thickly with less water and more opaque colors, but also using the spray method to obtain a less rigid appearance.

"Grey Wetlands"
16 x 12
acrylic on nujabi watercolor paper

On both these and other works (see my gallery "Coastlines & Waterscapes"), my vision was to achieve that hazy appearance one finds at the beach in summer when the heat drops a veil over the atmosphere and a lovely drowsiness descends, letting us drift into a state of reverie so difficult to find in the everyday world.

Did it work . . . ? I like to think so!