august morning

Title: AUGUST MORNING

Experimental watercolor

Most have the misconception that watercolors are anemic little landscapes and florals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Possibly due to fear, we don't add enough pigment to the water mix....keep in mind when we mix our colors, that watercolor dries two shades lighter than what we see in the wet stage. Other factors are the quality of the paint. As beginners we don't want to use the "good paints" so we use inferior paints that do not have good doses of quality pigments. We end up painting with lots of fillers and very little pigments. There are many quality watercolor paints on the market. Save costs by limiting your color palette to three cool colors and three warm colors , ( I use 8 cool and 8 warm) mix them with each other and keep notes on the successful and not so successful mixes. Learn what your palette can do for you.
I'm taking this opportunity to submit this post to a challenge posted here. These challenges will keep you busy experimenting.
The painting titled August Morning is an experiment in watercolor. I used both tube and liquid watercolors. A distressed piece of acrylic cheese cloth gave me the texture when dry. If you are interested in watercolor or mixed media and live in the area of Fort Collins Colorado, I would like to invite you to my quarterly workshops. More information here and on my websites.

happy birthday kayla

Happy Birthday Kayla

This is Kayla's first watercolor/collage, that's a painted half of a paper plate (found object) on top of her watercolor painting. I have used a photo of her and her painting, paper napkins from a trade, watercolor paint, and butterflies because they are her favorite. My collage to her is 11x15...what you see is just a portion of the painting.... she will be 5 on July 17.

dream mythology

Title: DREAM MYTHOLOGY

Size: 3 x 9

Mixed Media

One of many faces demonstrated at a How To Paint the Face workshop. The workshop includes the use of handmade papers with emphasis on design. The stamped images are from the CORY art stamp line available from AfterMidnight Art Stamps.

klimt challenge

Gustav Klimt is one of my favorite artist's. When Sharon Tomlinson suggested a challenge inspired by Klimt, I jumped at the chance. The approach to the 5x8 collage, is not the norm for me. (another challenge) I started with a scrap of an old watercolor painting, layered some transparent and opaque handcrafted papers, and proceeded to paint the face and hand with acrylics. Circles were cut from magazine pages and collaged in jig saw fashion along with two three dimentional doodle motifs. Handpainted textures finish the background. Visit Sharon's Blog to see her fun and wonderful artwork. You might even like to join the challenge.

#4 frottage mini tutorial

Here is a close up of the Frottage Painting. When I did the rubbing on the icon, I positioned the rubber stamp so that I would get a halo effect and avoided rubbing wax onto her face. The piece of frottage that is glued to the upper right corner, has silver wax lines that stop at the white and blue shape. I continued the flow of the lines using white acrylic to unify. There are three gold spots that break up the large orange shape. Line and shape was used to keep the viewer inside the painting. Scroll down to post #1 to read the tutorial. Go to http://www.art-with-moxie.blogspot.com/ to see the finished painting.

If you have any questions or are interested in taking a workshop, please contact artwithmoxie@cox.net

#3 frottage mini tutorial

Rip and arrange your frottages (rubbings) into a pleasant composition paying attention to the elements of design. I teach using five elements, line, shape, color, value, and texture. Move the images around until they feel right to you, and glue them onto the substrate with a light application of good old Elmers glue. I have used this glue for years and have not had any yellowing of my papers. Note: The bottom section of the icon frottage was ripped off and part was used on the upper right and mid left side of the collage. Unify the shapes using colored pencils, acrylic paint, chalks, etc. On this painting I used white acrylic paint and added a touch of gold leaf. Detail on post #4.

#2 frottage mini tutorial

Choose the tactile surfaces to do your rubbings. I chose one of my art stamps, and a clear plastic texture sheet.

Look around you and experiment rubbing differant surfaces. I also chose a photo from an old newspaper and rubbed it on the large stamp with a block of silver and blue encaustic. You can see a piece of it on the lower left hand corner. You can use crayons, candles etc. If you are going to use your rubbings for collage, you will need a substrate. I cut an old watercolor collage that had been in incubation for years into small pieces. I collaged on a 9x6 piece. Gather your collage elements and go to the #3 post.