Category Archives: Inspiration

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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Technique Tuesday: Rolling Gesso

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I’ve forgotten where I learned this technique but I know atleast one of my professors from college used this for the first few layers when prepping his boards and canvases for painting.

And that is to use this:

(Imagine there is a picture of a small foam paint roller here, ama zon is being a dink and won't let me link it up.)

To roll on the first several layers of gesso.

I’m using a heavy foam roller, 4 inches wide by about 1 inch in diameter. It lays down a even coat of gesso, in the exact same texture as when applying wall paint, a pebbled texture that looks like an eggshell. The thicker the gesso the higher the peaks.

The one down side is that the roller holds a lot of gesso, so it’s best to plan ahead and cover a lot of paper or canvas when you are rolling gesso. It’s also effective to get a perfect smooth surface with much less work than using a brush. (Another downside is that if you are rolling the roller away from you it will kick up a lot of fine even splatters, it will coat a new black shirt in sand like dabs of paint. This may or maynot have occured in real life.)

I used the roller as if I were rolling ink onto a plate. Then rolled it onto the paper or board as if I was painting a wall. I allowed it to dry between coats and I did not sand at all, I enjoy the texture.

some more pictures

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I'm being a terrible blogger these last couple of days. Just know it's for good reasons, m'kay? So here are some pictures I took over the last week or so. _7141066

 These are PINK day lilies. I never thought I'd be a fan of them but these kick ass, and people like to trade other day lilies for them. This is a nice sunset shot of one.
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Apparently my city has a couple of "working" docks and not just docks for fancy boats. In this case, a  lobster boat is at the dock. 
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*SIGH* Teenagers and Jager go hand in hand, sadly the drunk teens leave "stuff" behind. This will make some great sea glass later- dark gree is great. (I also found some err used "protection" in the beach trash. Seriously people, dispose of it in better ways!)
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Another shot of the lobster boat. This may become a painting later this winter, or not, who knows.

Taht being said, I'm getting to know the camera better and I'm thinking more about the shots themselves, not just pointing and shooting. I'm better at composing a scene just by looking than I am through the lens, I guess years of en plein air painting has some positive effect. I've figuring out how to start teh pricocess of applying how I look when I'm painting to the lens of my camera. It's not that different, it seems to be about looking around, like i do when I'm painting and then holding up the camera and clicking.

Camera Shenanigans

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On my lunch break I did  a little reading today about camera settings, you know that funky stuff- ISO (the sensitivity of film to light), aperture- how wide the opening is in the lens, and stops or shutter speed. I didn’t have my fancypants camera on me but I did have my point ‘n shoot. My point and shoot has controls for shutter speed and ISO. I set it to macro and started to snap pictures of a G2 pen I had on my desk, in the back ground is a stack of folded letters ready for mailing.

The first picture is at ISO 1600, with the camera’s self setting for shutter speed.

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The second picture is the same image at ISO 1600 set to expose at the camera’s setting of +2, or double the camera’s regular shutter speed.

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In this one you can see the graininess of the background, which I rather like in comparison to the foreground. Additionally the image itself is not quite as crisp as images shot at 200, 400 or even 800 ISO.

The 3rd picture is the same image at ISO 1600 and down 2 from the camera’s regular setting.

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Below check out the same item, shot at 400 ISO at the camera’s internal “regular setting.”

IMG_3182 Anyway, the whole thing is fascinating to me in that I’m learning I can control the camera to get results I want before transferring the images to my computer and editing, even with just a point and shoot. This clearly opens up a lot of options.

Technique-I-can’t-wait-until Tuesday: Mini Polaroids with the Pogo

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I was over here reading Crafty Moira’s site and I stumbled upon her tutorials, this one caught my eye– pogo printer yes, making it look like an old school mini Polaroid, why yes thank you very much.

After checking it out, I realized it would be cool to have the pogo print the square image and then simply trim off the excess. (read, I'm too lazy to go get my white cardstock.) After some trial and error I figured some stuff out.

First. Don’t work the actual 2×3 inches of the print, you’ll get a grainy print. You need to work larger than the print size so the pogo can compress it down, or something like that. I chose to work in GIMP (a free photoshop clone that kicks butt) with a “canvas” size of 4×6 inches, which is the same aspect ratio as the pogo print, which is 2×3 inches.

Then I opened a photo, I cropped it square and then cut and pasted it to my 4×6 blank “canvas.” It was over sized, I then selected “resize layer” and resized the image to 3.375 inches square. This will give you a 1/8th of an inch border around the sides of your image, and about 1 inch at the bottom. After this you have to flatten the image and then save it as a jpeg. Now send it to your pogo.

When it prints you’ll notice several things. First the pogo has a hard time with square edges, the top edge of my images are all just a hair off square. I don't mind this, but if you do you may wish to go with Moira's original instructions. The second thing you’ll notice is that the bottom part of the image is really long. You’ll need to trim the bottom so that it is ½ an inch high or so that the whole thing is 2 3/8ths tall. Trim with a ruler and an exacto and voila! You have a mini Polaroid, from a Polaroid Pogo. Sawweet.

In Journal Revolution there are instructions on how to make a Polaroid mat from cardstock for a perfect polaroid full sized image. It looks awesome too.

Some tips for printing you want the image to be at 300dpi, if you let the program autoselect 75 or 150 dpi the resulting print will be pretty grainy. I’m pretty sure it has to do with how the pogo processes the images to its format. In any case the higher the DPI the better the pogo print will be. Also be sure that you save it as a jpeg, if you don’t the pogo will not print it at all, its little lights will blink at you, you might get frustrated because you don't understand it's blinking light, unplug it and then turn it on and off*.

So as I was doing this I realized that I could really add any color to the back ground. I remember Polaroid did some neutral gray and black bordered polaroids at one point, but what’s to stop me from making the background any color I want? Or what if I wanted to add some text to that little area below the photo? Or what if I tweak the image in GIMP to create a pinhole effect?

There are so many alternatives to this that it’s crazy.

Here are a few of the images I made, ready to go for anyone's pogo.

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If you don't have a pogo you could create your blank canvas as 4×5 inches and then scale it to the "correct" Polaroid size of 3.5×4.25 inches. Then you can print it on any printer or load it to a thumb drive and take it to CVS/Walgreens/Walmart/or anyother store with photo printing. (Walgreens has a service where you can load a bunch of photos to a website, place them on an 8×10 sheet of photo paper, and then print the whole thing for a couple of dollars. All you have to do is pick them up at the store in a few hours, they will ship to you for a few dollars.)

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Wordy Wednesday: Learning to Embrace Fail and Fast

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One of the important things I’ve learned over the years about art is that it’s okay to make bad art.

It’s okay to fail.

It’s part of the learning process of art.

Back when I was in college I pushed myself to make every piece of art I approached a successful work. I worked hard on things and labored over stuff and I grew to hate it. There were few pieces of art that I really liked when I was in college. Over the years I worked on less and less outside of class until my last year where I became fascinated with Matisse’s collages and started making my own with crayons and white glue. I loved making collages. The great thing about it was that it was easy to make something vaguely attractive.

After I left school and I worked with kids I realized that a good part of what I had learned was how to fail and how to make really really really bad art.

Some of the stuff I made in college was awful.

Really bad awful.

I avoided painting class but the funny thing is that some of my more successful pieces from college were from painting classes.

I’m not sure why I avoided those classes. Perhaps I didn’t want the challenge or I was too distracted by all the ohh shiny stuff of other stuff I hadn’t done yet- carving plexiglass? Why, yes please!

I gave myself a challenge today, to complete a 5x7inch painting of stuff in my office while on my lunch break. Before my break I noticed that my hand sanitizer bottle and tabbed paperclips made an interesting composition. I quickly set up my pochade box, grabbed a panel and sketched out the little bottle and clip, super rough. It took less than 5 minutes to sketch them out. I squeezed out 3 colors: titanium white, unbleached titanium (titan buff), and cobalt blue hue. I grabbed a crappy #1 bristle brush and dipped into the blue, applying color in bold strokes. I then added the unbleached titanium in dabs and small strokes, allowing the color to blend directly on the page. As I worked the thinner layers of color  dried the thicker layers stayed slightly moist. I scrubbed color here and there, dabbed it in other places.

At the end of 30 minutes I snapped a picture of my piece and posted it to twitter.

If I spent another 30 minutes on this painting it would be inherently better. I’d add more layers of color, maybe some glazes and maybe add some other colors. I could firm it up and make into a finished piece.

That defeats the point of a piece like this.

A piece like this is meant to stretch your skills force you into looking in broad bold strokes and attacking the canvas/paper.

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There is no mincing around when working small and fast. There is no going back and touching up  little slips here and there.

It’s go.

Here’s the thing, I’m not beating myself up because this isn’t my best painting ever, instead I’m looking at it as a starting point. From here I can only get better. In 30 minutes I’ll be able to produce something neat.

But I won’t kick myself if I fail.

Technique Tuesday: Cigar Box Pochade

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I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect cigar box for a pochade box for quite some time now. The thrift store I shop at often has cigar boxes for just a few dollars and I always buy one if they have one. I built my first pochade box back in 2009 with an empty wine gift box, it’s far too big and heavy but it is sturdy and good for short travel but not long walks.

Last night I found a nice small cigar box, wooden and very sturdy. When you look for a cigar box look for one that has a hinged top that is not just one flat piece of wood, that way you can replicate my very easy pochade.

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Once you find a box you’ll need the following tools and materials:
5/8th hardwood square rod/dowel
Saw
ruler
Pencil
Glue
Sand paper
Exacto knife

The lid will form your easel. Start by opening it to where you’d like the easel to rest. Use this as a guide for where your 5/8th wooden rod will sit. The wood stock will form the rest for the base of your easel. The lid will rest against the wood and be supported. For one of my boxes the wood pieces came 1/16th of an inch from the top of the bottom part of the box. For another box the wood sits flush with the bottom of the box.

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Measure this and cut your wood to size. Depending on your box you may need to work around the hinges. In my case I cut 2 pieces of wood to create vertical braces. I sanded the edges smooth and used wood glue to adhere them to the box. Any glue that squeezed out I wiped off with a damp rag. I put them box under weight and allowed the glue to dry over night.

I cut a piece of plastic to fit inside the lid to act as a palette. I then cut a notch in the inside lip of the box to securely grip the palette. I did this with an exacto knife.

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This box holds a large water bottle, 8 small tubes of Liquitex basics paint, a rinse tub, a small tube of acrylic glazing liquid, some rags, and soap. I added a mini bungee cord to help hold any canvases or boards in place. This pochade would easily hold 6 full sized tubes of paint. The water bottle could be discarded and more paint or mediums added.

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I may end up getting rid of the water bottle as it adds a lot of weight to the box and I always carry a reusable water bottle with me. This would allow me to add a mist bottle and a larger bottle of glazing medium. I carry 2 or 3 brushes in a brush wrap, 1 small round, a flat and a filbert.

In case you missed it, all I did for this was figure out where I wanted the lid to rest, cut 2 pieces of wood and glue it to the backside.

Beverly Arts Festival 2011

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I spent the AM at the Beverly Art Festival, a yearly arts event here in my little city. I was struck by the contrast in the “nice” part of the city and the other part of the city. Cabot street has been beautified and streets blocked off for the festival, which routes traffic through the other parts of the city. It would be really nice to see the city expand the festival to the small park just off the main street and have some live local bands in the Gazebo. (Just a thought.)

I was able to meet a few really neat artists and peruse their wares.

The following people were of interest and had some great work for sale:

Altered Perceptions– a couple of ladies who make altered books and journals. Their work is very interesting and pretty affordably priced. It’s the first time I’ve seen a journal and thought, “That’s to pretty to use!”

Pins with a Past– jewelry made from found objects. ARGH GEARS so many gears, if I’d had the cash I’d have gotten a pendant. Very cool stuff.

Little House Art, aka  Tony Ziegler. He makes this fabulously simple art that he sells at affordable prices. He’s really nice too.

I also saw a local flamenco dance instructor and her students dance as well as the local Tae Kwon Do academy demonstrate their classes as well as their work. Check out my pictures for some high flying action shots and some graceful dance.

There were only 2 local food vendors there, a hot dog sales man and the local Indian place. Yum, mango lassi!