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Mystery Technique #92

May 17, 2020 – 10:22 pm

Interested in trying Dream/Intuition paintings? Next month I’ll share my favorite tips to get you started, including a 2-minute technique to get “unstuck” in painting and writing!

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #91:

Old rock walls have amazing textures! Here are a couple of the photos that inspired my rock wall experiments:

After doing the plastic-on-wet paint technique for the first layer and letting it dry, I added some acrylic spattering and a few watercolor glazes. Next I used a craft knife on dry paper to scratch in different depths of linear marks. Here’s the result:

When I added some wet glazes, the scratched areas turned dark:

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Transformation & Teaching with Fire

April 30, 2020 – 10:59 pm

In this time of no alarm clocks, I’ve had the luxury of paying more attention to my dreams and the messages they have for me, including new directions to explore in painting. Dreams about transformation, being at a crossroads, and trusting my instincts have led me back to explorations of intuitive painting. I’m letting my left hand lead, making marks with unusual tools, and working with layers to capture the look of a painting in a recent dream. Here’s a closeup of the intense colors of the first layer as I start to add a layer of white:

After I finished adding the white, I came back with glazes of more intense color:

To echo the dream painting, I’m now in the process of adding dark linear marks:

As one of my favorite poems suggests, I’m trying to “leave the roots on” and see where the painting wants to go. Here’s the layout as it appears in the wonderful anthology Teaching with Fire:

And here’s the cover:

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Mystery Technique #91

April 18, 2020 – 7:31 pm

Curious about how the special techniques I used to experiment with rock wall textures? You can find out the details next month if you’ve signed up for email updates; I’ll explain more about it in May!

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #90:

The treefrog is another example that started with the plastic-on-wet paint technique! Here’s what it looked like when I took off the plastic:

Cope’s Gray Treefrog is very common in the neighborhood woods; the calls of the males are a classic late spring/summer nighttime sound, especially after a good rain. I consulted multiple photos to help me to choose a section that best captured the look of the skin; then I taped a tracing of my drawing to the paper and cut through both layers:

These are the colors and tools I used:

Just like the real ones, my painted treefrog can vary in color if you change the background!