Author Archives: leslie

Traveling Around with a Camera in Tow

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I'm not used to carrying a camera with me, a journal and sketching tools, yes but the bulk of a camera is something new. Camera bags are… Ugly. I plan on adapting one of my bags to something a little less conspicuous. A camera is weighty, though I was shocked when I hefted my brother's girl friend's DSLR and found it weighed a LOT more than my little micro 4/3rds camera. It's lens alone weighs in at what my camera weighs.

Getting accustomed to carrying it everywhere is one thing, getting used to people looking at the camera with warriness, and on other occasions ignoring it entirely.

After using a point and shoot camera and adjusting minimal settings I'm not yet used to how I need to set things to get a decent shot. In some cases, like the night shot above, luck and taking 10 or so shots gets me one that works, mostly. Add to the mix the difference in macro and telephoto add ons and then filters, holy crap a whole new world has opened up to me.

A month ago if someone had said to me, put a polorizing filter on it and open it up half a stop, I'd have looked at them with a blank stare, now I'd kinda fidle with my camera and nod and pretend I totally get it when I only half get it.

The good thing with all this is I'm getting a ton of really really great reference photos for this winter, so you can hope to see some great acrylics on my blog. Also I'm art journaling about this whole process.

Technique Tuesday: Pause, Look, and Reflect

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I’ve been a crappy blogger the last few weeks. I decided I wanted to slow down a bit over the last few weeks. I’ve been wandering about my city with my camera snapping some pictures. I should be back into art making mode this coming weekend as Jane and I find a place to do a little en plein air painting. Our last trip out was in 100+ degree heat and it left us both feeling like we were fighting the paint and thus our painting. Jane went back to her studio and worked on a little image and I delved further into my camera.

I was an artist who poo-poo’d on photography thinking it a gear head type of endeavor. This summer I decided to invest in a micro 4/3rds camera and really start to take more photos as starting points for my winter paintings. I’ve found myself really enjoying the basics of photography. In no way am I embracing the gear headedness of photography. Instead I’m focusing on getting the most out of my camera and taking pictures of places I really like around my city.

The point of this post is to push myself to really push the limits of myself and to try and capture some spots I know, and love with the lens, with no pressure to create art right now, but to look and see, frame an image and snap a picture.

So I leave you with a few shots.

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Flickr Find Friday: FakeGlue

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Another journal page that resonates with my style of journaling: Collage, sketch then add a dash of color. LOVE IT. When I add the ephemera from my daily life to myjournal I'm recording my events not the events of some big company churning out what they THINK I may want to record. Nah, that ticket fromt he raffle I didn't win records the dissapointment of loosing.

Anyway FakeGlue does a great job of that with this spread.

 

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Technique Tuesday: Grunge Glaze

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Last week I mentioned distressing and grunging a journal color wiht my grunge glaze,  so this week I’m going to tell you about my mix for what I call “Grunge Glaze.” It’s a special blend of colors to give me a perfectly abused and dirty look to any page. Here’s the  recipe:

  • 1 part Carbon Black
  • 1 part Burnt Sienna (Red Oxide would work too)
  • 1 dash Burnt Umber (this can be skipped or another color added to warm or cool the mix)
  • 2 parts gloss gel medium (add more if you want more transparency.) Use glaze medium if you want a fluid grunge glaze. I like my glazes thick so that I can have brush strokes show up as thicker layers of color.
  • 1 dash retarder (skip if you want it to dry fast, add more if you want it to dry more slowly.)
  • Put all of this in a jar with a lid and mix well. Adjust as needed.

I spread this on with a rag and rub it in and off as I want a heavier or lighter coat. It dries pretty quickly so I can layer it easily. A spritz of water before fully dried allows you to lift more off than with a dry rag.

Go forth and make glaze mixes and call them fun things.

I know I've harped on this time and time again (as far back as my participation in 21 Secrets) but you don't need to buy those premixed glazes. You can mix your own. This is just one example of a glaze you can mix with gel medium or glaze medium. Share recipes in the comments!

Supplies for travel

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Often times when I take a weekend trip I take all kinds of supplies, telling myself, “I’ll use this, this, and oh I should add that to my pack.” In the end I use little of what I brought. I’m taking a weekend trip pretty soon and while I pack my things I’m being a little more deliberate about what I pack. I’m packing my new gum tin watercolor set, along with one of my mini mint tin sets full of intense colors for a little added punch when absolutely needed.  I’m taking 1 regular brush (#6 round,) a couple of water brushes, a small assortment of drawing tools, my sketchbook, a watercolor sketchbook and a 40 ounce water bottle. To round this out I’m taking my fancy pants camera and my point and shoot.

Added to my travel bag will be my journal, laptop and my pogo printer.

In the past I strayed toward over packing art supplies. I’d leave my house with a pack full of acrylics, pastels, pencils, watercolors, and everything else; only to find that I was never able to find the time to use any of it. My choices were so overwhelming I’d not make any art.

In the end the most important thing is capturing those moments that are of interest. I suppose I should take what can capture things quickly and easily and forget the rest.

Make a Watercolor Tin

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I'm obsessed with making watercolor tins. I've been looking for more and more adaptable methods since I  made my first with medication blister packs. (I have a UStream about this.)

On my way home a few nights ago I had the brainstorm to try to make the pans out of moldable epoxy putty, like that Mighty Putty stuff. I have a bunch of tubes of that but can't find them so I stopped by Ocean State Job lot to look into their glue section. (They generally have a ton of weird glues.) If I hadn't found it I'd have headed to Home Depot. I found a tube of Elmer's Automotive Epoxy putty. You could also use Mighty Putty, Sugru, or JB Weld's Putty.

The key to this project is that you get MOLDABLE epoxy putty. The Elmer's has a working or open time of 2 minutes after it's fully kneaded together, which works for this project.

You cut a chunk off, knead it until it's fully mixed, roll a snake and then press it into place in your tin and then mold it into a wall. Keeping your hands damp through the process helped a lot.

Once the walls firm up you can trim them with a knife. I used a utility knife to trim the walls into a nice straight surface, well mostly. Partially hardened the putty carves pretty easily.

After I built all the walls I let it cure and then sprayed it with a kind of even coat of white spray paint. I also sprayed the outside with a little gray spray paint.

This little adventure cost me the $2.50 for the gum and $2.99 for the epoxy putty. If I were chewing the gum anyway (which I do) it's sort of an even sum thing. If you have a friend who chews gum or is a mint addict this could be even cheaper. I used approximately 1/3rd of the putty. A larger tin like an altoids tin would use more and a mini altoids tin less.

I made myself 6 areas for paint and a small mixing area. The wells are 3/4 a full pan of a half pan and a half (this will only make sense to people who have half pan watercolor sets.) Anyway pictures:

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Technique Tuesday: Planner Journal

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Awhile back I purchased a  planner* from gouletpens.com and I didn’t do anything with it. I snagged it for about $4 off their clearance rack because it was for the 2010 and 2011 school year. The pages while tough enough for a lot of use for I was planning I felt needed a little heavy duty treatment,  so I started gluing pages together, every other page. This gave me a very heavy weight page.

I then applied a coat of gesso and watercolor crayon to each left hand page. I used a soft brush to really blend the colors into the gesso. Each page has a soft tint of the watercolor crayon. I then used tape that I’d masked off painting (it's got random colors all over it) with to cover up dates and calendars on the right hand page, leaving me with a nice framed grid on the right hand page.

I cut no pages from the planner. I know it’s strange but I really like that stressed out thick spine look. I also plan on adding a lot of collage to the left page. The right page may get some collage but I plan on mainly writing on it.

The other thing about this journal? I’m drawing in it with sharpies and nothing else. It’s the reason I wanted to glue pages and gesso them, so that I wouldn’t get soak through.

So far the journal is a combination of collage, sketch and writing. I always work in spreads so this journal is really working well for that.

Here’s what a spread in the book looks like with no sketching, collage or writing.

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And here are a few finished pages:

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Art Adventure: Saugus Iron Works

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Yesterday I went to Saugus Iron Works with my good friend Jane for painting, photographing and sketching time. It was great. The day was hot and the scenery was great and I drank 40 ounces of water. Thankfully, I wore sun block, by the end of the day, Jane’s iPhone was giving off temperature warnings! Yikes!

When I first got there I wandered around snapping pictures for a good 30 minutes or so. One of the Rangers spotted me with my camera and we chatted for a few minutes and he asked me if I wanted to see the water wheel working, of course I did, so he got another Ranger and they opened up the water and I got to see the water wheel working. It was pretty cool. It was especially amazing to see that almost everything there was built of wood or stone. Meaning they worked the iron with a lot of wood, crazy stuff.

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I saw lots of  great stuff. Big ass wooden gears? Hell yes! Big white Great Egrets? Yup. A blast furnace with bellows that stand 10 feet high? Mhmm.

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It was funny that I would sit down and paint a picture of the river leading away from the buildings but I enjoyed that scene as well. I’ll post a scan of the paintings I did as well as some of the sketches from that day.

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All in all, Jane and I both agreed that this was a sight we’d be returning for many more sessions of drawing and sketching. If you are looking for a free thing to do with kids in a quiet spot not too far from civilization Saugus Iron Works is it.

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