Diamondsandcompost's Blog

“Do Not Disturb My Circles” Archimedes last words

diamondsandcompost — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:19:49 +0000

Journey will end

Work at it

Patience, energetic work and courage Vincent taught.

These paintings resulted from a fun
Disciplined dance of the color brush combo.

Each brushstroke counts

Paint a clear picture
Atmosphere
Pure color.
Accept the negative energy in soul by looking at your lights and darks
Then you can harness creativity which carries you to your hearts desire.

velocity of sisterhood

diamondsandcompost — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:42:57 +0000

DEBT DIMINISHES STARS

diamondsandcompost — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:42:21 +0000

Vela Venezia

diamondsandcompost — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:14:43 +0000

This piece speaks to being on good terms with life on earth. Vela Venezia is a coming together of friends and celebrates the joy of movement over water driven by wind on sail.

diamondsandcompost — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 20:24:18 +0000

Click to view slideshow.

skinny dip

done in the early spring of 2010

drew a rash of fabulous and fun work for a string of sensational women…..all of these paintings have homes….my next post will be unadopted work….

FULL CIRCLE

diamondsandcompost — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:25:41 +0000

Teaching painting to the boys and girls club of charleston yesterday I remembered my teacher Kay Brown. There she was a chinese calligrapher, historian, philospher, poet, and artist, her brush – bursting with black ink. The paintbrush would sofly flow from bottom to top in the arc of a circle. Rotating her hand at the half circle mark, Kay would finish the circle. I did feel her presence for a nanosecond yesterday, perhaps we were together in another dimension as BIG TIM felt it too and looked at me -wondering where I went.
That is really all I wanted to post today. As the year 2009 closes it’s circle, I dearly remember my dad and my painting teacher both gone from this life experience. I feel thankful for the light and love of those still walking this blessed earth today.

A MEDITATION FOR PAINTING

diamondsandcompost — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:18:19 +0000

there is a wonder filled legend
about beginning in grace
man was not able to stand
firm and full
and the vessel broke and sparks fell everywhere into all things and
shells were formed around them. by our hallowing we are free to spark
…everywhere in tools, homes, food, clothing, movement, relationships, etc

a kind of radiance/light
an emanation/light, a freedom-with all the fear that comes along with freedom
something that fills our hearts with JOY
and GRATITUDE
no matter how we may judge
it is NOT our JOB
we are all seekers of joy, love, gratitude
we understand when this feeling nibbles at our toes
there is a jewish word for this joy at coming together shehechiyanu but what it means is sort of all that gratitude that brought us to this moment, this presence…
breathe in the joy of the canvas
breathe out the joy of creation
feel the gratitude inherent in the luxury of communicating in color

THE GRANULATED WASH

diamondsandcompost — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:55:11 +0000

FIRM FOUNDATION!

Many painters in watercolours are aware that some colours occasionally dry unevenly-in a series of blobs of solid colour which gives a mottled effect-but few know exactly why! Nor do they know how to control the unevenness, that is to say, to cause it or avoid it at will. This is one of the most fascinating and least understood branches of watercolour technique. To those who are looking for extensions of power over the medium, the results will have all the wonder of the revelation of a deep secret.

Take a piece of heavy coarse grained paper such as arches 300 lb., mount on thick cardboard, and fix it firmly to a drawing board so that it will not warp in the slightest degree. An absolutely plane surface is essential.

First give it a wash of vermillion or pale orange, weakening towards the top of the paper. Leave till quite dry, mix a considerable quantity of cerulean blue in a palette tray–about twice as much as would be required for an ordinary flat wash.

Place the drawing board at a slope of about 15° with the table. Take a large wide brush capable of holding a deal of colour; charge it fully and draw it across the top of the paper so lightly that the hairs scarcely touch the paper. Add a brushful of water in the saucer and extend the wash by another stroke. Repeat the process as quickly as possible till the paper is completely covered.

Immediately after this is done lift the board to an angle of about 60°; when the wash begins to run down; then tilt the board in the opposite direction and the wash will run back. Do this several times and note how the pigment separates into solid spots leaving spaces of clean, or almost clean, paper between, while the water has separated from the pigment. When the pigment does not move with the water let the water drain off, place the board at the same angle as when the wash was painted, and leave to dry. You can assist the water draining from the paper with paper towels or elephant ear sponges.

charcoal and watercolour

diamondsandcompost — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:36:43 +0000

Charcoal used in conjunction with water-colour has its own particular characteristic charm. In the demonstration, of a simple sketch of apples, relating to the use of charcoal with water-colour, there are two vertical bands of red on the top left and top right, both being a pure wash of exactly the same tint. Note how much lighter the top left colour appears than the top right. The groundwork of the latter was prepared with a thin, soft piece of charcoal stick, applied lightly, and spread evenly on the drawing paper. It was then fixed with a liquid solution commonly known as “Fixativ “ in the art trade, with a spray diffuser (also sold in art stores) available with a variety of finishes. It is at once apparent that by fixing charcoal in advance, any colour that may be applied later is unable to disturb the line drawing, granulated surface, or shadow pattern beneath. By fixing the charcoal before applying any colour, the student is in a much better position for controlling the final touches of a picture.
The use of charcoal for cloud studies is an important help to a watercolour artist. Charcoal glides easily and quickly over almost every sort of drawing paper. Thus the elusive movements and continually changing shapes of clouds can be drawn with decisive rapidity by the painter without being too much concerned with any colour tints eventually used. In the two bottom paintings the necessary depth of charcoal was obtained and then fixed before painting. The deep rich tone of the highest clouds and adjoining sky in the bottom left sketch was easily arrived at with a fairly light-coloured wash over the dark-toned charcoal drawing. The same technique maybe used for middle and foreground. For architectural subjects charcoal is often a help, not only for accuracy in displaying architectural knowledge, but also for suggesting by reason of its crumbling surface, an atmosphere of antiquity.
It is important to remember when painting in watercolour on a prepared charcoal drawing that the colour should be much brighter and purer in tint than is usually the case when washed over a pencil drawing. The depth of tone or density of charcoal, tends to neutralize any bright colour washed over its surface.

An undeniable advantage of a generous use of charcoal with watercolour is the manner and degree in which it helps to strengthen the whole picture, and to link together the component parts, either of buildings, figures or landscapes, by its recurring undertone of dark charcoal tint. As you experiment with watercolour, you may experience the piece “dying” as the color dries…if the composition warrants, try recusitating the work with charcoal. If need be, use the charcoal to highlight various sections of the composition. The purity of the colour washes contrast with marked effect when opposed to the tints washed over the more strongly prepared charcoal ground, preventing total loss!

UNFIXED CHARCOAL
This method requires more knowledge of the ultimate result of a painting, the charcoal being used without having been previously fixed with liquid solution. Provided that the charcoal drawing is sound in construction and not too solidly used, and that dense patches of black surfaces are avoided, colour can be washed over without obliterating the original charcoal drawing. A large square-shaped brush, if not less than half an inch wide, should be used when convenient, in preference to a small paint brush, which only tends to disturb beyond repair the charcoal beneath. For some purposes the unfixed charcoal method is more appropriate than the other, as for instance, in a landscape depicting early morning frost, the contours of trees, and other effects of nature can be shown better by the unfixed charcoal. It causes a sharply broken surface, giving a realistic impression of the sparkling, vibrant sensation generally associated with those early surprising frosts.

by ann philips

PARTICULARS OF ACCESSORIES

diamondsandcompost — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:17:10 +0000

No painter of watercolours, however clever and resourceful, can afford to neglect the problems relating to impedimenta and accessories. What is the most suitable easel, paint box, or stretching apparatus? These and several other questions call for experimentation. In some cases the answer depends upon special individual requirements, is your work dry brush or wet on wet for example.
The best kind of easel, if any, may depend upon the method of painting adopted, do you prefer 15, 30 or 45 degree slant to the paper? The present writer regards any sort of easel as an intolerable nuisance and has not discovered anything better than a table, the floor or my favorite the beach beside the lake … because she generally paints in a very wet method that necessitates the keeping of the picture in a horizontal, or nearly horizontal, position.
The method of painting ought to determine the choice of any easel. For the drier methods the ordinary kinds, holding the picture almost upright, will do. For the wetter methods, an arrangement by which the picture can be held in a nearly horizontal position is essential. The drawing table, used by most black-and-white artists, or perhaps better, an architect’s drawing table, is eminently practical. For comparatively small work, and for sketching, there is an easel composed of a tripod surmounted by a movable holder enabling the angle of the picture to be changed at any moment. A visit to a few shops supplying artists’ and architects’ drawing requisites, or if that is impossible, the perusal of their web-sites, should settle the question.
In other cases, unfortunately, the choice depends upon the depth of the purse. Those who have no need to spare a little expense would do well to secure certain conveniences and appliances that always make for efficiency.
Perhaps the most important is a really satisfactory place for storing paper. The best arrangement we know is a chest with shallow drawers with hinged fronts, used by architects, and called flat files. Keep in mind metal is a better choice for the proper preservation of fine art works. It should be large and with sufficient drawers to take everything of the kind required, and to allow for division into blocks, tinted, hot pressed, not pressed, mounted paper, mat board, sketches, finished pictures and what-not (do minimize the what-not!). Mounts of various shapes, sizes, and patterns, with frames to match, should be regarded as necessities, because it often happens that a picture which turns out to be unsatisfactory on the scale originally intended, is transformed when cut down to another size and shape. And it is very helpful to look at the picture behind the mat at various stages of the work. Many a picture has been ruined by overlooking the possibilities inherent in editing the composition.
There is no excuse for the absence of a large T square and 4 white corners of mat board. Pictures in which houses, towers, and walls threaten to topple, and reflections take impossible directions are true signs of the amateur and can on occasion be cropped out!

The best kind of paint box is a never-ending topic for discussion. Here again the method of painting is bound to influence the choice. If one paints in large washes at a table there is little need for a box of any kind. A nest of white saucers and tubes of colour are more useful for all but the final touches.

If, however, a box is in constant use, the question of tubes v. pans becomes important. To buy filled pans is open to one grave objection-the colour is almost certain to get dirty and mixed with some of the others, unless you utilize an exacto blade to remove pigment and place it onto a palette. A large brush charged with a dark colour accidentally thrust into a full pan of very moist pale colour will destroy the purity of the whole. Probably the most satisfactory plan is to buy empty whole pans, squeeze in a little color at a time, and clean them frequently. There is much to be said for large tubes containing certainly at least four times as much as the ordinary whole tubes. They are considerably cheaper, and small tubes encourage the suicidal tendency to be stingy-instead of generous. It has been said that half of being an artist is the mastery of cleaning up; this includes the paint source and brush!
A large supply of pure water (there is no more convenient receptacle than a huge bucket) is essential. It is sheer childishness to try to paint a clean picture with dirty water.

The havoc wrought by uneven paper justifies the possession of the best obtainable stretching apparatus. The usual method-that of damping the paper, laying it on a drawing board and pasting the edges is rarely satisfactory except for moderately thin paper and on a small scale. Often it peels off, stretches insufficiently, and cockles when painted on, or splits because it is overstrained. There are several kinds of stretching paper which can be negotiated in a few minutes with invariable success. All things considered, nothing can equal the staple gun and a hardy board.
To a prepared board, i.e. stapled or pasted on a wooden board, but it must be by hand; as the pressure of machine rollers takes all the character out of the surface of any good paper.
As with methods so with materials: personal investigation, if pursued with thoroughness and intelligence, is always more fruitful than the blind acceptance of the best advice! Find a method you enjoy, prepare the surface and then preserve the surface!