Art in the Making by Jenny Armitage

My husband and I spent last weekend on the Oregon Coast. The weather was so fine we hardly even went inside at all.  So on our last day having not set foot in a shop all weekend,  it occurred to us we had bought nothing for our daughters.  So we stopped in a shell shoppe. We did find some lovey sea urchins for the girls. But we also found something for us, a bisected nautilus shell. Stephen wanted it to display it, but I wanted to paint it. I’ve just finished painting it and it now lives on our mantle together with fossil shells and a free form hand made basket. But it will visit the studio again.

I took great liberties with the color of the nautilus which is really is really a dull orange in the outer chambers fading to blue green at the center. The color shift in my painting was driven by the decision to heavily under-paint the shell in phthalo blue to emphasize the depth of the shell.  I over-painted with various mixtures of new gamgee yellow, quinacridone madder rose, and phthalo blue.

The left most of the glass stones resting in the shell is actually stone marble. But the green and rust of the actual marble would have clashed horribly with the rest of the painting, so I changed it to a blue glass marble.

The background is a wash of burnt sienna grayed down with phthalo blue.

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Here are another three cone flowers from last Fall’s garden. This time I painted them during my gallery shift.

I altered my painting techniques a little from Afterglow I. I under-painted the petals in phthalo blue before over painting them in opera and dioxazine violet. I under-painted petals in phthalo blue too. I think the under-painting does add to the the three dimensionality of the flowers.

I also added dioxazine purple to the palette, working it in to the cones and the petals.

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Painted from a photo I took in my front yard last year, this is a close up of my pink cone flowers (echinacea). Like mums and asters, coneflowers are a reliable late summer flower. In the late afternoon light they just glow. I only have five of them but I hope they spread like mad.

I began this painting with the center of interest, the cone of the the cone flower. I painted the bright orange parts of the cone with a combination of quinacridone deep red rose and cadmium yellow. I began with the brighter orange edge and worked my way down adding rose to the mix as I descended the cone. I filled in around the orange-red highlights with a mixture of burnt sienna and cobalt blue letting the colors mix on the paper. I worked some rose into the mix as I reached the rim of the cone.

I added the petals next with deep red rose, cobalt blue and quinacridone opera from Winsor and Newton. Opera is a vivid pink which I rarely use, but has it uses. Nothing else in watercolor produces such a florescent pink.

I added the background last with a mixture of cobalt blue and cadmium yellow, toned down with burnt sienna. Burnt sienna which is a red-orange desaturates green but not to the extent that green’s compliment red would do. I applied this mixture in tone wet into wet layer and and used a paper towel to lift some of the final layer.

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I wasn’t entirely satisfied with Magic Bowl I. One on the things I thought lacking was textural contrast and I found the paperweight that formed the center of interest to be a weak point in the painting. The daffodil provides both color and textural contrast. I also gave the background more texture and contrast. I like the result much better. And it keeps the abstract design feel I was aiming for in the first painting.

I painted the bowl conventionally working from light to dark beginning with the daffodil and moving on to it’s myriad of reflections. I used hansa yellow light, winsor orange, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue for the flower. For the bowl I used phthalo blue, cobalt blue, cadmuim red, winsor orange and burnt sienna.

For the background concrete I applied several layers of burnt sienna and phhtalo blue. I salted each layer separately. Salting which is exaction what it sounds like (you sprinkle salt on wet paint) cause irregular lighter areas where the salt sat.

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I have admired pastels and mixed media with pastels for some time now.  There is a sparkly quality about pastels that no other medium can match.  Pastels over watercolors can create both spectacular and subtle effects.

My husband bought me pastels for Christmas, and I have been playing with them this last week.   Pastels are if  anything less forgiving than watercolor.  All color mixing must be done on the paper either optically or by smearing.  Pastel smears easily.  The paper holds only so much pastel before it suddenly won’t take anymore.   This last can be fixed somewhat, by using a workable fixative.  Some lifting is possible with a kneadable eraser.

The method is very different from watercolor too.  Working with them is a kind of cross between drawing and painting. Pastels are an opaque medium and therefore work best if the dark tones are blocked in first and the lights laid over them.  Highlight go on last. Nothing runs.  The chalk stays right where you put it until you smudge it.

I started this image on the rough side of a rose colored sheet of  Canson Mi-Tietens paper.   I laid in the sky with PanPastels.  PanPastels come in pots rather than sticks and they are highly pigmented and almost dustless.  Applying them is reminiscent of applying dry eyeshadow or rouge.  The top of the sky is phthalo blue. Further down I switched to ultramarine blue. Then I worked back up the sky from the horizon, overlaying the deep blue with ultramarine and phthalo tints (both of which are almost white).  I used white, and more of the blue tints to lay in the clouds.  Then I got out a violet soft pastel stick and added the deeper shadows smudging them in as I went.

I roughed in the far tree line with a dark blue shade of soft pastel.  I added a dark green shade lower down and smudged.  I pushed the pastel up into the sky with a sponge applicator.

Returning to PanPastels, I added the hills with turquoise blue shade and bright yellow green shade.  Burnt sienna came next.  Then I went back over the hills with a variety of green and brown soft pastels to create texture.  I smudged these in with my fingers.

Continuing with soft pastels, I drew in the poplar trunks first with a dark green gray and a red brown.  I added a lighter gray and then an almost white gray.   Then I added the leaves beginning with a dull orange, continuing with a brighter orange and finally a yellow orange.  I smudged the leaves on the farther tree to suggest a little distance.

With soft pastels I put in blue and purple shadows under the foreground trees to indicate the rough grass line.  I drew in the grass over the shadows with a variety of  hard pastels starting with the darker colors and continuing with the lighter ones.  I softened the lines with a finger.

After years of reserving or painting around the lighter colors, laying in the trees over the sky and grass felt like magic.

I enjoyed this.  Watercolor will remain my primary medium, but pastel has a rough sparkly quality I’d like.  Some images just seem to demand it.  I may also do some mixed media, painting a watercolor first before accenting it with pastel.

I ship my watercolors rolled in a tube or, if they or very small flat.  I provide free shipping for watercolors within the continental United States. Pastels cannot be safely rolled since they would smudge and they should be both matted and covered with a protective sheet.  Therefore, the shipping cost of my pastels will vary depending upon size.  All pastels will will include an acid free neutral colored mat and backing.

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I’ve been experimenting with a couple of new methods.  These two paintings are the result.  Both are based on  some photos of trees half drowned by the swollen Willamette River I took  this weekend.  I wanted to catch the cold grayness of of the scene and the mystery of the half hidden trees.

Blowing:

I blew the trees.  I placed puddles of paint on the paper and blew them into trees with a straw.  The line of paint running out from the puddle  looks surprisingly like a tree limb.  And the direction the paint goes in is quite controllable.  But once the paint has started in one direction it’s hard to make it turn.  The paint follows the wet path as if it were a stream bed.  The solution is to drag a little paint in the direction you want to take it and thus start a new path.  Where the trees over-lap it’s important to let the first tree dry completely before starting the next, otherwise the paint form the new tree will run up the first tree.

There are several ways to vary the color in the tree.   Leaving the supply puddle partially unmixed is one. New colors can be blown into the wet tree from the base.  Accents and be directly painted onto the dry trees. I used all three methods on these paintings.

Layered Masking:

The second method is painting grass and bracken with multiple layers of mask.  Thin lines of mask establish the highlights.  Then color is applied.  Then more lines are applied. Then more mask for multiple layers.  When the mask is removed a complex texture is revealed.  I was less successful with this method.  It’s hard to see what you are doing or to guess the result.  More practice is needed.

I used layered mask in Submerged I.  But I didn’t like the results immediately.  The foreground was too busy and detracted from my trees, which then looked much like the trees in Submerged II.  After some thought, I painted over the trees in dark tones to match the foreground.  The result is an evening picture.

For the second painting I added the foreground wet into wet.  The result is simpler and gives the feeling of the gray afternoon on the river.

The palette for both paintings is:  burnt sienna, phtholo blue and dioxion purple,  plus a dab of hansa yellow.

Original Paintings

Submerged I $75.00 Submerged II $75.00 Submerged I and II $140.00

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This is the Willamette again, but it could really be anywhere.  I was struck by the way the reeds look like they are growing out of a sunset.

Like the Broken Dock I painted a couple days ago, I began this painting by masking everything except the water.  After the mask on the reeds dried, I painting the sky’s refection on the still water wet into wet beginning with an overall wash of very diluted burnt sienna.   When the shine left the paper, I added various mixes of quinacridone deep red rose and new gamgee (yellow).  I used cobalt blue and burnt sienna to ad the darker clouds and phthalo blue for the water.

Once the  sky had dried, I removed the mask and painted the reeds in new gamgee, colalt blue, phthalo blue and burnt sienna.

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This could be anywhere.  What I liked about my photo was the sunshine and the interaction between the young women.

I intended to pour a very atmospheric painting, and I did pour one reserving only the womens skin for direct painting.  But I was unhappy with the reflections in the windows and the draping of the sundress.  I really liked the bright pinks, oranges and yellows I got through pouring though.  So at the gallery yesterday, I repainted the image using not only my photo, but also the poured painting as a guide.

For most of the painting I used hansa yellow light, new gamboge, quinacridone deep red rose, and phthalo blue.  Using two yellow helped keep things bright.  I added burnt sienna to the hair and the leather bag.

I tried to keep most of the poured feeling by mixing the paints freely on the paper.  I added the windows and other darks in many layers of transparent color.

I’m happy with the results, but were I to do this over, I would pour the windows, sidewalk, and shadows and perhaps the dark bag and pants.  Then I would paint the women directly.

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My girls like to hunt for fossil shells on the beach. Once a middle aged fossil hunter with a German Sheppard stopped to to talk with them. It was a brief conference between enthusiasts. He was looking for fossilized fish and other rarer things. The four shared the boulder strewn beach under the cliffs while I watched the waves.  Then the girls and I headed back up the beach for the warm hotel room. He caught up quickly and thrust a stone into my youngest’s hand and was gone before she could say thank you or even see what it was. It was the find of the day, a fossilized shell perfectly preserved on one side and rough rock on the other.

Joy! I popped it right down on the sand and photographed it.  It lives on our mantle piece now.

I began the painting by masking the shell. Then I washed the background lightly first with yellow ochre, then with burnt sienna. I painted in the shadow of the shell with phthalo blue. After that I used an old toothbrush to splatter it with layer upon layer of burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cerulean blue, and Prussian blue.

Next I removed the mask and painted the shell in burnt sienna, and cerulean blue. I added a few gouache white touches.

When I stepped back to look at it, I decided that the sand was toobusy and had taken for the picture. So I took the painting the sink and scrubbed paint off it with a stiff brush under the sink. Washing a painting is a scary process, but sometimes it’s the only good fix. The result is softer, but still shows the effects of the splattering.

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Ordinarily I paint from life or more commonly from my own photographs.  But the photo I based these this painting on was taken by charlena of RedBubble.  The art groups on RedBubble regularly hold competitions.  One of my favorite groups, Just Watercolors, often holds competitions in which each artist paints the same photo.  Up until now, none of the photos appealed to me particularly, but this one did.

Charlena’s picture is moody and emphases the intimate nature of the space and lighting. I didn’t see any way to do that better with paint than she had already done it with the camera.    But I really liked the shadow looming up behind the resting musician, so I changed the format from horizontal to vertical and cut out most of the dark wall to emphasize the man and his shadow.

My version of this scene is an almost entirely poured painting.  After transferring my sketch to the paper, I masked the musician, his shadow and everything else dark in the sketch.  The trick to applying liquid mask is to use synthetic brushes and to soap the brushes before and in between dips  into the mask.

When the mask was dry I poured the lights.  After wetting the paper (a necessary first step to get the paint to stick) I poured a tea like mix of hansa yellow light over the paper.  I waited for the hansa to dry before pouring first new gamgee, then deep red rose.  Once again I wet the paper.  I poured the area around his feet first.  Then I poured upwards from his head to preserve the bright yellow halo effect around his face and hat.

When the lights were completely dry, I removed the mask.  I took a moment to renew the pencil lines the mask had lifted. Then I masked all of the areas I has just poured leaving only the darks.  I left the mask to dry.  Then, after wetting the page, I poured light mixtures of cobalt blue, phthalo blue, magenta and deep red rose.  I tried to keep the darker and colder phthalo blue primarily to the shadow and the dark wall leaving the cobalt for the figure in the middle.

After the paint dried, I masked some small highlights in the musician’s face, hat, trousers and shoes.  When the mask dried, I wet the paper and poured the same colors in the same places only darker.

When the final mask was removed I felt the picture was too bright.  So I added little gray shadow under the chair to set off the vivid colors.  Colbalt blue over the orangy pink floor produced a lively gray.

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