John C Campbell Folks School - Warm and Cool Class

Keith House

Just back from a most wonderful week at John C Campbell Folks School in Brasstown NC near Murphy. Fun times with several new BFFs...my dear Lorraine and Joann and funny Steve and dear Cindy and so many other wonderful people from all over the country and Canada....

Best food...we ate alot but I actually lost weight...hmm portion control and healthy food...Music and nite or paint your heart out...

A great class with such knowledgeable teachers

Ken and Bobbi Umbach

Mixed Media Painting and glass...warm and cool...I am now plotting return trip for his watercolor class...he reminds me of my favorite professor Freeman Schoolcraft. So knowledgeable and skilled at all things painting and collaging. His wife Bobbi the queen of glass!

Opening Doors

Ken got us off to a great start. They had five easels set up with a different color canvas on each one. Each of us rotated painting something different on each of the five canvases. Two diagonals one time, a cross another time, whatever we wanted for example. This was mine. It looked like doors so I enhanced it. I thought doors were kind of an appropriate symbol for the week that followed...odd how things happen.

I still want to go back and add some words to it but so far not quite done!

Spring on the River

Next we folded crumpled and glued down tissue paper on canvas and then had to paint it...this is what i came up playing with the transparency of my golden paints.

Blue Ridge I

Around lunch time I got the bright idea to fold the paper as mountains...this was my first attempt...still playing with the transparency of the Golden acrylics Thalo Blue, Hansa Yellow, Pyrrole Red, Quin Magenta and Quin Nickel Azo Gold.

Blue Ridge II

My second attempt at the mountains. I like this one better because they dont line up vertically. I think i took off more paint while doing these than i left on...mopping with a paper towel the whole time.

Moon Over the Blue Ridge

My next bright idea...we were supposed to be combining the glass with the pictures which i was not getting...then i realized i could add a moon to a nite scene and I was off down the adding glass trail. Bobbi was sweet enough to make the moon for me at home with some silver on the back. It really glows.

Spring trees II

If you know me you know that I have an ongoing romance with all the all oaks in my neighborhood...and spring is blooming along the rivah...I just love the leafless tree skeletons...and the soft reds and greens of early spring.

Coral Reef

Next on tap was citrasolve...spraying national geographics with citrasolve...WHAT fun and WHAT fantastic papers it produces....Mine had a lot of triple and double spreads. This is one of the doubles with another page attached as the reef...I lightly painted it with Golden iridescent gold and some micaceous iron oxide...and of course painted the reef quin magenta mixed with the gold for more underwater glimmer.

Next i added the jellies to it..and a school of fish. The jellies are strings of glass that Bobbi kindly provided with a little help from our class glass queen Martha Vann who had the pile of light purple ones...hours of gluing with E 6000 later...it was done.

Angel

The angel was made from another citrasolve double spread. The pages had stuck together and when i pulled them apart...it looked like angel wings...even had a space for the angel in the middle...I lifted color for the hair in the middle with more citrasolve...enhanced it with iridescent gold and purple some pit pens and then some gorgeous deep purple by golden. Next came the drips...LOVE those drips ...iridescent gold, micaceous iron oxide...Golden of course!!

I had squirreled away a lovely piece of glass nugget that was pale purple iridescent...just the thing for my angel to hold.

My favorite piece of glass...actually about 2" square!

Fish

You will never guess what the water is made from. I had been saving all my paint rags aka old paper towels all week...my table was a wreck with bits of saved papers and towels and tea bags...but as i was cleaning up I found this fabulous paper towel. I glued it down just as i found it...added a couple of extr

a fish leftover from the coral reef...VOILA a great fusion of paint and glass!

Oak Leaves from Keith House Parking Lot

I picked up 6 oak leaves one rainy morning and flattened them in a JCC class listing book. When old dried leaves are wet they can be reflattened to glue onto things. I have a whole telephone book of leaves that i collage on to art work. The background of this is on a wood cradle. I glued two sheets of citrasolved National Geo down...then added some more citrasolved Geo to make the cruciform. Then added 6 leaves...a nice remembrance of a wonderful place!

Hmm more leftover glass bits ...love the big squares and the smaller dicroic glass on black and clear glass...I do have some ideas on what to do with some of them...stay tuned!!

Our class Show N Tell on Friday

Bobbi and Ken

Blue Ridge III

More tissue paper glued down to form mountains. OOPS I forgot to use the transparent golden paints...i may have to veil this one

with more tissue paper and have another go at it...

Plexipainting...sort of a tutorial...or should i say how i did it?

This was the first plexiglass painting i did...now remember I have been painting for hmm well more years than i care to remember and I do have an art degree...there are times when all i want to do is paint on anything that will hold still long enough for me to do it...I also signed up for an online class with Julie Pritchard and Chris Cozen called Mixed Media Melange where i learned this technique...HOWEVER I did not want to "copy" their class sample...so i took their techniques and I think i made them my own.

Detail of gold showing thru...

when the painting was done i was not happy with it...so i took a fine grade sanding block to it and sanded thru layers of paint to the bare plexiglass and then covered the open areas with gold iridescent paints...Now I LOVE it!!

Spring Garden

This is my favorite painting...spring garden...Believe it or not it was inspired by a piece of spring flowered fabric!! I painted alot of interference and iridescent colors on this BEFORE I started adding the opaque colors...also lots of layering of transparent colors followed by a final opaque layer...

So now i will walk you thru the process of creating ONE plexiglass painting...

I Remember You

So how did i do this plexipainting...its reverse painted which makes it quite an interesting and thought provoking process....



The pallette is Golden Fluid Acrylics Phthalo Blue, Hansa Yellow Light, and Quin Magenta with Iridescent Gold and Silver and Interference Blue.


I knew I planned on using as piece of cheese cloth so i painted it brown and put it outside to dry.



Summer before last Margaret Wesley and I took pics of some cemetary angels...this one started out with the typical blue sky grey tombstone color. I uploaded it to picnik.com and changed the colors and used an effect on it called "HDR-ish" to get this brown gritty textured angel.

I printed this picture out to make a paper transfer...cut it out and glued it down on the REVERSE Side of the plexi.

The bird is from a blog with copyright free downloadable illos called Thesumofallcrafts
There are ALOT of links to other websites with CR free downloadable illos on it...A great site!


The first thing i did was two paper transfers on the back. You glue them down with gel medium gloss, let them dry, spray them with water and DELICATELY roll the paper off till you can see the picture from the back...


Here are the paper transfers painted...I drizzled watered blue down it with some Quin Azo Gold that I do love for its rusty look...and painted the bird to look like a brown thrasher...well I am calling it a brown thrasher:>

At this point i stenciled some interference blue on the plexi...hard to see, hard to photograph but gives a lovely glow to it!


I covered the transfers with silver to give them a glow...and painted rings of Quin Azo Yellow around them...



I glued down the cheese cloth and let it dry. Then I started daubing it with gold silver and blue
I used a grid to do a "stencil" with some Titan Buff paint...


So here it is from the front...NOW I had problems. I painted the background in this TWICE and scraped it all off...outside the area you see painted here...

Finally i streaked the bare plexi with interference blue and overpainted it with streaks of phthalo blue and quin azo gold...kind of like old paint...I had first tried drizzling paint like i did on the tombstone...NOT a good look but I may try that again...love drizzly runny paint!



Then i sanded some of the blue off down to the plexi with my sanding block and added some more Quin azo gold with some iridescent gold...


and voila it was done...not only was it done...it let me take a pic of it glowing WITHOUT lights reflecting in it...the others would NOT let me do that...hate to think of how many pics i took of them with little success...windows reflecting lights reflecting...sigh

Now it needs a coat of gel medium or glaze to protect the paint and a frame....

Tutorial - Painting paper

My favorite paper...love the swirl in the middle...looks quite rusty!

It just occurred to me that this could just as easily be done on fabric...i would tape the fabric down first though!!

I was teaching a class and wanted to have some dark paper available for collaging for the students...so i decided to whip some up.

Here's how i did it! I used regular cheap printer paper..what did we use for paper before we had printers and a pack of paper in the drawer?

I squirted some Golden Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold across one edge of the paper.

Then I scraped it across the paper with a credit card, making big smears of color. Hard to beat that Quin Nickel Azo for beautiful color!

Next I added Micaceous Iron Oxide to it...

Then I added some Irisdescent Silver over it.

Another combination is with Quin Nickel Azo Gold first again. The second layer was Raw Umber.

And then i added a layer of Irisdescent Silver.

Next I flicked water with my fingers across the paper and let it sit for a few minutes. Then i scraped it again to get these delicious patterns of drops and swirls allowing the layers of colors to shine through.

And the following is what i got...

Quin Azo - Micaceous Iron Oxide - Silver

Quin Azo - Raw Umber - Silver

Raw Umber - Silver

One last note...be sure you only have one piece of paper at a time...otherwise you have a stack of messed up paper..ask me how i know. This can also be done on delisheets...and i hope to try it soon on fabric..think it will be delish!

so alot more stuff red hot off the paint brush

Taking an online class...called mixed media melange with julie pritchard and chris cozen as teacher...its alot of fun..Ille and Marsha are taking it too...we get videos that we can view forever and a pdf class handout as well as interactoin with the teachers online at ning.com...been a very interesting experience so far...

the first class or lesson was painting in shades of blue and green and then stamping stenciling over it...this is one of my two blue ones...



This is done with quinacridone magenta and hansa yellow...stenciled with gold and pearl paints...yummy colors....

Bucket List

Lesson three was SHABBY chic...and i really had fun with this one....we collaged a layer...painted it out with white and titan buff...then collaged over ...did some sewing...this is the first one i did...the leaves were on the front porch yesterday...stitched thru the canvas cloth with some of my stash of hand dyed pearl cottons...added some antique pearl buttons that kim gave me several jars of...well two...and i stamped on it...this was going to be Connies 50th birthday present till i made her another one:> has a Bucket list of things that she can do to amp her life up now that shes over the hill:> you will have to check back tomorrow to see the other one or check on FB since shes no longer there!! will post it there shortly:>




THis si the second one...Little Women...i collaged a page out an old 1946 Little womens book on to this...the page has all the important characters on it...the tree is also ripped from Little Women...There are alot of others neutrals too...

THis is painted on a deliwrap sheet and is from lesson 1...well sort of...we didnt have to paint green but it was too much fun...and you get great color on deliwraps!! You said WHAT are deliwraps..those thin pieces of paper wrapped around your favorite fast food hamburger or a sausage biscuit...looks sort of like wax paper but isnt...great fun to paint on...cheap...500 sheets or so for 5.99...and it collages well..i have painted at least a dozen of these including a pile of valentine colors to make valentine cards with well maybe:> if i can quit making these shabby chic things...:>


Here are a few more deliwraps...this one is quin red and hansa yellow light with gold...sequin waste and abc stenciling

quin red and and gold for glow

the first deliwrap i painted...stripes of quin red, phthalo blue iridescent pearl and gold

another rusty deli wrap

phthalo blue and some pinks made with quin red...stamped with bubble wrap and squares of plastic needle point wrap