Boys and a straw……

Two of my nephews, Joey and Johnny, came for a little visit last week and of course we headed straight to the studio.  I taped 10" x 10" pieces of print paper to acrylic plates and adding a few drops at a time of high flow black acrylic paint, they used straws to blow the dots of paint around the paper.

This one is Joey's who is 10 yrs.

After we felt there were enough of the black lines we used a hair dryer to make sure it was nice and dry.  Next came the brushes and the watercolor to fill in areas with bright colors.
We think they are very cool!

This one is Johnny's who is 8 yrs.

This was a scrap of print paper that I used as a demo piece to show the boys how to use the straw to blow the paint as well as a demo for the watercolor.


Have to say I like the abstract quality in this one.


6" x 12"

Then in my Print class on Friday I decided to try a monotype using a variation of the straw technique.  Because my inks are water based I rolled on some color creating a background first.  I then thinned out some of the black ink with water to get a more fluid black.  It was hard to get it to flow very far but still interesting.  Of course as I was rolling on the background I thought to myself what are you thinking, "You don't even have a straw!" so looking around I found a ballpoint pen I could take apart and use the barrel as a straw.

Guess I need to add straws to my art box.


5.5" x 14"

A Little Bit of Messy Fun……

Oh boy, did we have some crazy messy fun!  Two of my sisters, my nephew and I attended a workshop with Jane Davies in Portland at the Art and Soul Conference.  It was two days of creativity and was messy but filled with laughter and fun.

This was her Layering and Excavating workshop, where we played with adding more and taking away and then adding more.

This one started out with mark making and ended up here.

Jane is a great instructor and lots of fun!  She did a lot of demos and we learned many fun techniques.

When you get to a place where you liked it, Jane's suggestion….paint over it and continue!

This one started out with a cruciform of collage on white paper. More mark making and trying out different things here.  Layers, collage and more layers.

I can't even tell you how many layers were in done on which pieces. I was working on five pieces at a time.  I thought about taking photos as I went along but got so involved in the moment that I didn't get many.

Another cruciform of collage with layering, collage, paint transfer of lines and more paint.

All of these are on 10"x10" Stonehenge Printmaking Paper

The first thing Jane had us do was cover two of our  papers with red paint and let it dry.

The red blotches on this one were the original layer of red excavated through many layers of paint.

Using matt medium and paint heavy inscribed lines can be created.  More paint and some collage.

This was also a red page even though there is not much red showing.

 Not being a painter this was a great experience for me.  It stretched me in a new direction and allowed freedom to just play.  We were not trying to make completed pieces. It was interesting to mix up a little pile of paint and take breath and paint over a layer. My mantra was "I'm going in!"


I have to spend a day playing with these new techniques so I don't forget.