by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Arty Inspiration, Everyday Ordinary, Photography |
Inspiration strikes everywhere. Anytime. That’s why I always try to carry my camera around. Because you KNOW the one time I leave it home I miss the PERFECT shot.
Unfortunately that happens more often than I care to admit. But I’m getting better.
I live in a picturesque old gold mining town. Lots of interesting textures and buildings to photograph. But as I said up above, inspiration can come any time, anywhere. Including the sidewalk in front of a strip mall.
I look at this stuff and get so excited. Makes me want to run down to the studio and paint. The paintings will likely look nothing like the photos because that’s not what this is about. They’re for inspiration…. Color. Texture. Design. Proportion. Or all of the above. Layers and layers of oils and wax building up to the final piece.
Mystery. Depth.
That’s what makes it so exciting. That’s what makes it worth stopping traffic on the sidewalk while I whip out my camera and take pictures of the cracks.
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Process, Sisters |
She be here! Marjorie Ellen, chief tormentor of my youth, flew in from Norway yesterday. Today I drove down the hill and picked her up at the train station. The first thing we did, after the hugs and kisses, was hop back in the car and head to In-N-Out for a couple of burgers. I will NOT tell you how many burgers my skinny sister can pack away at one sitting. But I can tell you I am jealous–absolutely lime-green-with-envy-kind-of-JEALOUS of her metabolism.
After dinner we headed home. Home. The last time she was here was April, when Mama died. But the cottage isn’t Mama’s house anymore, it’s my studio again. A place where art happens. Smells like oil paint and beeswax. It’s messy with art supplies and cat hair and things of Mama’s that don’t know where else to be.
She started unpacking her stuff. It was like Christmas…bubble wrap, newsprint and ART! Gorgeous, glorious sister paintings. Etchings. Oh. My….. Photos tomorrow.
Meanwhile here’s a few photos of my own. Things I worked on today. This is new to me, COLD wax mixed with oil paint. I’m not experienced enough with hot wax yet to get where I wanted to go with the large panels, not with a show hanging on Monday. Actually I’ve got my fingers crossed that these will be dry by then.
Everyone, send some good dry mojo this way, okay? Thanks.
So this is what I did today.
Not this. (arrow pointing up) I did this last week, It’s the underpainting for (arrow pointing down).
This is after playtime with cold wax. It’s not the final photo, I straightened out the horizon but forgot to take the picture.
I’m REALLY liking the cold wax. Probably because it’s more in line with the way I paint. So it’s less of a learning curve for me.
Here’s another one. First, the underpainting, It’s 1’x3′ on plastered cradled board. Lots of fun with the texture here.
Starting the process. Just got to jump in and be bold.
And this is how it looks now.
Now it’s time to visit with Ms. Margie. YAY!
by Susan Lobb Porter | Art, Process |
See those three guys to the right, the birds? True confession: I go through stages where I use that image a lot. Three fat little birds, always blue, tweeting and twittering throughout my work in a non-social networking sort of way.
That particular painting has been hanging on my studio wall (ok, pinned to the studio wall) for ages. I’ve never been moved to move ’em out.
Earlier this summer I decided to paint them again, this time on plaster. I made a cradled board roughly the same size, coated it with plaster and painted the birds.
The end result was flat as day old beer. Wasn’t worth keeping. Wasn’t even worth photographing.
They had to…go away. But I wasn’t giving up that board without a fight. So I sanded it. Gave it a base coat of dark blue to bring out the cracks. Oh, and by the way, when working on plaster I prefer to use the cheap craft acrylics. Doesn’t have much binder and the plaster soaks it up, giving everything a chalky appearance whereas the good stuff just sits on the surface like plastic. And they’re so cheap you can buy armloads, truckloads, for next to nothing.
This is where I realized I’d scratched boxes around each bird. I could’ve filled them in with more plaster but that would’ve added another day for drying and I didn’t want to wait. And I would lose the cracks.
Warning: The next couple of photographs are out of focus. Squint. You’ll be fine.
I added some color as an undercoat. Don’t ask me how I choose color, I just do. And I guess this would be an over-undercoat since there was already a (mostly) blue base.
Toned it down with more paint to even things out. Sanded just a bit to bring out the under-colors. The texture is coming through and I’m happy with what’s happening.
I scratched some marks and filled them in with contrasting paint. Then I threw in some dots because I like dots. This is what it looked like before wax.
And this is what it looked like after. I incised into the wax, rubbed oil color into the scratches. Rub. Wipe. Rub. Wipe. Working this way is hands on down ‘n dirty.
You can see more of my plaster and wax work here.
