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!