I had read about some gesso resist techniques and wanted to try them. The author, whose article appeared in a magazine called “Apprentice Building Blocks” from Somerset, neglected to mention whether one had to paint the background with paint before doing the gesso resist, or whether you were to just paint the gesso on plain …
Category: alternart
Apr 02
48 Birds #4: The Sparrow Looks Up
For this piece, as with the previous one, I was hoping for a faint scratchy surface texture, like a print from a scratched negative or an etching. My attempts to do this with beeswax were messy and unsatisfactory, so I decided to use the slight-resist properties of gesso to do the same thing. I had …
Mar 25
48 Birds #3: The trouble with beeswax
Every time I see beeswax collages in the art magazines, it looks really fabulous. Every time I try to replicate it, the results are messy and frustrating. I think it doesn’t help that I’m lacking the correct tools. I use a heat gun and a ceramic dish (I learned not to use metal!) instead of …
Mar 22
48 Birds #2: “There were facts about ravens she didn’t want the others to know.”
This was a learning experience. Once again I started with watercolor paper, and wrote on it with a calligraphy dip pen. I wrote “There were facts about ravens she didn’t want the others to know.” Once again it became quickly apparent that plain writing on a white background is BORING. When I’d finished with the …
Mar 15
48 Birds #1: The songbird that teaches
I have been wanting to embark on a collage project. That is to say, I want to start practicing in earnest to become a better mixed media artist. I had a theme in mind: 99 Ravens. I like pictures with ravens, after all, so why not do a series of mixed media with that as …