52 Weeks of Art: Week 35

Week 35: Encaustic

Welcome to week 35 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

          This week we did some encaustic painting. What is encaustic? It's hot wax painting. It's a mix of beeswax, resin, and pigment that gets used as paint. You can buy some already made encaustic paint, or you can make your own. Since encaustic paint isn't really budget friendly, we decided to make our own paint. Making your own is pretty simple. You just need beeswax, damar resin, and pigment.

    Here's the beeswax. It came in little pellets. I like the little pellets, they melt quickly.

     Here's the damar resin. It comes in these crystals. It's a tree resin, so it's kind of on the sticky side. The crystals are added to the melted beeswax. It's used as a wax hardener. I'm sure it serves some other purposes, I'm no encasutic painting expert.

    I didn't get any pictures of the whole batch of "paint" I made. I melted the wax and resin in a larger container and portioned it out into smaller containers to color. I added some pigment to small portions and mixed it up with some popsicle sticks. 

    Now for the painting part. Wow. This was not easy. They make some fancy tools for painting. We did not get these fancy tools. The painting tools are heated. They probably would have made painting so much easier. Trying to paint with hot wax on a cold surface doesn't work out so great. The wax hardens almost instantly. So, the solution was to put our canvas - okay, it was just a block of MDF - right on the griddle. After the block heated up it was much easier to paint. It wasn't easy, but it was easier.

    Here's a close up of the painting I made. I like the sort of 3D effect the wax creates. 

     And here's the final product. I'm not so sure this photo turned out so great, but it is what it is.

On to rating encaustic...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for encaustic, my rating is: 12

Ease of use: 3

 Hot wax isn't the easiest of mediums to use. It got easier the more I used it, but there is definitely a learning curve.

Affordability: 1

  Buying all the supplies for this medium was not cheap. I spent a little over $80 for supplies. That was the cheaper option of making my own paint, too. Yeah, not really affordable.

Accessibility: 4

     Buying the supplies - beeswax, resin, and pigment - was pretty easy. I just purchased everything online and had no problems finding what I needed.

Fun to Use: 4

Before we decided to put the MDF right on the griddle I thought there was no way I was ever going to finish this. AFTER putting the MDF on the griddle, I think I really enjoyed this medium. I really think this is something I'm going to try again. Maybe I'll even invest in getting those fancy tools I was talking about.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 34

Week 34: Wood Burning

Welcome to week 34 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     We are now about 2/3 of the way through out 52 week art adventure. Can you believe it? Week 34! That means we have now tried out 34 different mediums. Wow. When I first thought of doing this crazy adventure, I didn't even think I could find enough mediums to last a whole year. Now? Now I'm always finding new mediums and thinking, "why didn't I add that to the list?" One of the first mediums I added was wood burning. I have been looking forward to doing this one for a weeks now. 34 weeks, actually.

     Wood burning, or pyrography, is made using a heated metal tip that you burn the wood with. I have never done this before, but I was super excited to try it. I went to Amazon, because why not, and I ordered myself a basic wood burning kit. It included several different tips to use to create different shapes. It even has some basic shaped tips like hearts, circles, etc. So many different things to explore.

      My amazing brother-in-law, Rebecca's husband, cut different pieces of wood for us to use. Now, I'm no wood expert, but I do know that we had some MDF and maybe some plywood? I'm not sure. We started practicing on the MDF, thinking it would work really well because it's so smooth. Wrong. It didn't work great at all. Maybe it's just because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I really struggled with getting a smooth line on the MDF. Next we tried the maybe-plywood. I know that it was at least a real piece of wood. Worked so much better. Phew. If it didn't work, I was worried I was really going to fail at this project. I mean, kids do this sort of thing at camp. At least my kid did. So, if kids can do it, I should be able to do it.

     The tool goes up to 450 degrees. That's hot. Like burn your skin off hot. Why kids are allowed to do this, at camp no less, I have no idea. I was so worried the whole time that I was going to burn myself. Luckily, no injuries occurred. Phew. I did have to eventually stop because the tool was getting too hot to hold, even on the part of the handle that was supposedly safe to hold.

     I will say, if you are going to try pyrography - which is just fun to say - you should do it in a well ventilated area. I kept breathing in the smoke because I had my head right over my project so I could see what I was doing. Also, be warned, you will smell like you've been sitting around a campfire.

     Even thought the whole kit came with multiple tips, if I wanted to try out a different tip, I had to wait for it to completely cool off before changing the tips. Then I'd have to wait for it to heat up again. It actually heated up and cooled down a lot quicker than I expected, but it was still about 15 minutes from cooling off to heating back up again. So, switching out tips is really not quick. If you were going to make something that required the use of several different tips, it's going to take you a while.

     Now, I do not have any progress shots because I was so worried about burning myself on the stupid tool I completely forgot to take pictures. Yeah, I know, that happens all the time. So, here's my attempt at pyrography:

 

On to rating wood burning...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for wood burning, my rating is: 16

Ease of use: 3

 I don't think that using the tool was easy, but after using it for a while I found it easier to use.

Affordability: 4

  Amazon sells a whole variety of wood burning kits. You can easily get some for $35 or less.

Accessibility: 5

     You can easily get a wood burning kit online. Arts and crafts stores sell them. Walmart has them. Even Harbor Freight has one. Yeah, they are easy to find.

Fun to Use: 4

At first I didn't think it was all that fun when I was trying to use the MDF. Once I switched to using the maybe-plywood it became must more enjoyable.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 33

Week 33: Thread Painting

Welcome to week 33 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     We've got some more fiber art this week. This time it's thread painting. What is thread painting? It's also called needle painting, and it uses a series of long and short stitches in various colors to create a painting-like masterpiece. Thread painting isn't embroidery. It's similar in that it uses fabric, needle, and thread. but embroidery uses more stitches. Thread painting uses just straight stitches - long and short.

     Here's some examples of some amazing thread painted art:

Cayce Zavaglia is amazingly talented. You can see some of her work here.

Victoria Matthewson is another incredibly talented artist. You can see her stuff here. 

Nicole O'laughlin is also extremely talented. You can see her work here.

    All of these ladies are so incredible. I follow them all on Instagram and I am constantly amazed with their talent. I knew that I wouldn't be able to create anything of their caliber this week, but I was going to try my best.

     I pulled out all my supplies and got to work.

This is like 2 hours of work.

Here's another hourish of work.

Another six hours of work.

More hours worth of work.

I stopped counting the hours by this point.

It looks like a little bit of something now.

Getting there! This took about 5 hours. 

I added some more trees and leaves.

     Well, I think this is the first time I haven't been able to finish a medium in a week. I thought I could make it. The cross stitch took me about 40ish hours or something, so I thought I could get this done. But, I couldn't. It's soooo close, though. I need to finish up the trees and add some clouds. Hopefully I will be able to update this soon with the finished piece. I even gave myself some extra time to try and finish it, it jut wasn't going to happen.

      If anyone ever says that tiny art is faster and easier to do than something larger - don't believe them! Tiny art is just as time consuming and difficult as larger scale art. In fact, some tiny art is even more difficult!  

     

   

On to rating thread painting...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for thread painting, my rating is: 17

Ease of use: 4

 Alright, if you can stitch at all, you can do thread painting. However, that doesn't mean you'll be able to achieve photo realistic quality.

Affordability: 5

  Thread costs $0.60-$0.80 for a skein. Depending on how many colors you use, thread painting isn't going to cost you too much. Also, you can stitch a lot with one skein.

Accessibility: 5

     You can get some thread from any arts and crafts store. Or online. I prefer to use the DMC brand of embroidery floss, but you can use whatever you like.

Fun to Use: 3

 Thread painting was fun and frustrating. I like seeing how all these tiny little stitches turn into a complete picture. I don't like how long it takes to finish.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 32

Week 32: Charcoal

Welcome to week 32 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

    

     

     This week's medium was charcoal. Charcoal is a very messy medium. Be prepared to get charcoal all over yourself and your work surface.

    So, what is charcoal? If you're thinking of the charcoal you use to BBQ, you'd be wrong. Well, I mean, it IS charcoal, but not the kind you use for art. There are different types of charcoal you can use for art:

     Willow or Vine charcoal: made from grape vines or willow sticks. They're often not particularly straight, have a more wavy feel to them. It's more smokey and light in color, getting your darks really dark will be difficult.

     Compressed charcoal: made from powdered charcoal that has been compressed (obviously, the name says it all) with a binder. It's formed into uniform sticks. You can get these in different ranges from hard to soft. You'll be able to get cleaner lines with a compressed stick. You'll also be able to get darker darks with a softer compressed stick.

    Charcoal powder: it's just powdered charcoal. It's got a softer tone to it. It can be applied using a brush, your fingertips, whatever you want. You can quickly cover large areas with charcoal powder.

    Charcoal pencil: it's a stick of compressed charcoal encased in wood. Yeah, it's a pencil, just with charcoal instead of graphite. Charcoal pencils work really well for making fine details.

     I pulled out my charcoal supplies for this week and got to work. I have a whole collection of various charcoal supplies, but for this week I used my mystery box of charcoal pieces.

     And here's my finished charcoal drawing. It's a tree. I know, I do a lot of trees. I like trees, okay?

     I should have taken a picture of my fingers after - charcoal everywhere. But, since I had charcoal all over my fingers, I couldn't take any pictures. Sorry about that.

On to rating charcoal...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for charcoal, my rating is: 11

Ease of use: 4

 I feel like if you can use a pencil you can use charcoal - at least the charcoal pencils. The only difficult part, I think, is keeping your lights light and getting your darks dark.

Affordability: 5

  Charcoal is super affordable. You can get a complete set of all the charcoal supplies you'd ever want for around $20. 

Accessibility: 5

     You can get charcoal in just about any arts and crafts store. You can definitely get it in an art supply store. And, of course, you can easily find it online.

Fun to Use: 5

 I love using charcoal. I love the texture of it, the softness of it, everything about it. But most of all, I love getting charcoal all over my hands. It really makes me feel like an artist, like I'm creating something.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 31

Week 31: Gold Leaf

Welcome to week 31 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

    

     This week we have gold leafing. What is gold leaf? It's gold - REAL gold - that's been hammered  paper thin. It comes in small sheets that are layered between paper. Otherwise they'd just stick together. How to use the gold leaf:

     Step one: apply some adhesive to whatever you're planning on gold leafing. They have gold leaf glue. I didn't get any, we just used mod podge.
 
     Step two: wait for the glue/mod podge/whatever you use to dry until it's slightly tacky. Carefully lift the gold leaf off the protective paper. You can use your fingers, but it's probably going to stick to them. I know, it stuck to my fingers. I suggest maybe some tweezers. At this point, you're going to want to not breathe. Any slight breeze will blow away your gold leaf.

    Step three: gently lay the gold leaf on top of the glue. Wait for it to dry some more. Then get a paintbrush and brush away the extra gold.

     Step four: repeat until you are satisfied with the gold coverage.


     So, those are the basic instructions on how to gold leaf. Um... that's not really how I did it. Rebecca did her gold leafing first, I still had to paint something to gold leaf. She came prepared. She followed the instructions and we found it very difficult. When my painting was tacky (I used acrylics) I decided to put the gold leaf on, hoping it would just stick to the paint. It did! Also, instead of trying to lay the whole sheet of gold leaf down, I just ripped tiny pieces off at a time. I'm sure that this is not the actual technique for apply gold leaf, but it worked for me. Also, gold leaf is not cheap and I didn't want to waste any of it!

     I tried to be better at taking photos, but I didn't get any before photos. Sorry again!

Here's the paints I used - minus the yellows.

Here's the gold leaf I bought.

Here's my painting. I love the blue color of the water.

Here's a sheet of gold leaf. Yeah, that's a nickel next to it. These sheets are TINY. 

Here's my painting from an angle. I think you can see the gold better here.

And here it is. My gold leafed masterpiece. 

     I think it turned out good for not knowing what I was doing. In case you can't tell, it's supposed to me the moon in a starry sky. It wasn't easy trying to get a decent photo of the gold. The lighting doesn't do it justice. 

     Also, in case you were wondering. The back of the package says that it is 100% edible. So, yeah, I tried it. I can honestly say that I am not a fan of eating gold. It tastes very metallic. Obviously, I suppose. I only ate it because it was stuck to my fingers. Each tiny sheet cost me like $1.00. It's so delicate I was constantly worried I was going to sneeze and blow $20 worth of gold around the house.

On to rating gold leaf...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for gold leaf, my rating is: 11

Ease of use: 3

 I'm going to say that gold leafing is not easy to do. The gold leaf itself is super delicate and likes to do it's own thing.

Affordability: 1

    This is probably the least affordable medium on our list. I spent $20 on 30 sheets that are 1.5" square. If you're planning on gold leafing a large area, it would cost you a small fortune. But, it is actual gold. So, there is that.

Accessibility: 4

     I'll be honest, I'm not really sure where you can get gold leaf in a store. I got it on Amazon. I love Amazon.

Fun to Use: 3

  I think that gold leafing would be more fun if I wasn't so worried about money just blowing away.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 30

Week 30: Monotype

Welcome to week 30 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     For this week we have monotype for our medium. Now, this is something I have never done before. Of course, that's the whole point of this 52 week art adventure, to try new things. However, lucky for me, Rebecca just finished teaching her elementary classes monotype. So, she was my teacher this week and showed me what to do.

     What is monotype? It's a type of print making, but it's a one and done sort of situation. I apologize again, I didn't get any process photos. Ugh. I really need to work on that. Alright, so here's the whole process:

     Step one: Get a piece of acrylic, or glass from a picture frame, and rub a small amount of dish soap all over the surface. Don't wash it off, just rub it all around.

     Step two: Using watercolor paint, or markers, or any similar type of ink, quickly paint your picture/design onto your prepared surface (acrylic or glass). You really want to make sure the paint/ink stays wet.

     Step four: Take your paper and press it over your painting. Press good, but try not to move the paper so you don't mess up your design.

     Step five: Admire your work of art.

Here's some REAL monotype artwork for you to look at before you get to mine:

Here's a Degas monotype. He's pretty amazing.

Here's another amazing piece by Degas.

     I just used my trusty watercolor paints. For paper, I used three different types: cold press watercolor, hot press watercolor, and print making paper.

     Here's my various attempts at monotype:

   

This is my monotype on cold press watercolor paper.

This was supposed to be some flowers. This is the hot press watercolor paper.

And this one is  print making paper.

   

          

On to rating monotype...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for monotype, my rating is: 18

Ease of use: 5

 Monotype is a surprisingly easy medium. Especially if you're not too concerned about getting details. It works out really well for more abstract art.

Affordability: 5

    Since we used watercolors/markers for ours, it is very affordable.

Accessibility: 5

     All the things needed for this type of monotype printing can pretty much be found around your house. If not, you can get them easily just about anywhere.

Fun to Use: 3

  I thought this was okay. I got frustrated because it wasn't working out the way I wanted it to. If I had tried to just go completely abstract I wouldn't have had any problems with it. Will I be doing monotype printing again? Probably not.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!

52 Weeks of Art: Week 29

Week 29: Mixed Media

Welcome to week 29 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

     This week our medium was mixed media. I love mixed media! It's an anything goes type of medium. In order to qualify as mixed media, you have to use more than one medium. That's it! With so many medium choices out there, there really are so many possibilities. The most common mixed media art out there is collage and paint. 

    Here's some examples of various mixed media art:

I found this here.

I found this guy on Pinterest.

   There are so many more mixed media pieces out there I could show you. I think you get the idea of what it is. While you only need two mediums to consider it mixed media, I decided to use 5 different mediums. I used pen, ink, watercolor, gouache, and origami. 

    Alright, here's what I made:

Riding the Waves. Mixed Media. 3"x 3" on illustration board.

     Here's some pictures pointing out what each medium is. I know, I should have taken pictures between each medium. I am just getting worse and worse at taking pictures of this whole process. Ugh. I will try to do better next time. But don't expect it to actually happen.

All of the lines in the waves are different pens.

I used ink for the dark "inky" sky.

I used various shades of blue in watercolor to paint the waves.

I used some white gouache to add foam to the waves. I tried to add some texture, not sure you can tell from the picture.

I made a tiny origami paper boat. 

    That's my mixed media adventure for the week. I thought about adding a tentacle grabbing the boat, but I feel like that tiny paper boat has enough to worry about.


   

          

On to rating mixed media...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for mixed media, my rating is: 20

Ease of use: 5

 Mixed media is so very easy to use since you can use literally anything.

Affordability: 5

     Mixed media is very affordable since you can use anything you've got lying around the house. You can even use some old magazines, some junk mail advertisements, other miscellaneous things you might otherwise throw away. Here's your chance to reuse, recycle, and re-purpose.

Accessibility: 5

     I'm going to say that mixed media is the most accessible of all the mediums because you can use whatever you have.

Fun to Use: 5

  I love mixed media. The possibilities are endless.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!