Tagged TerraSkin

New Hippo Camouflage Hiding Behind Art

New Hippo Camouflage: Hiding behind Creatures with Antlers

Spokescat Max
Spokescat Max: The hippos are coming.

For about six weeks, I was obsessed with anti-climate change convocations headed by Creatures with Antlers who were gathering inside the Hidden Bamboo Forest of Saint Paul. I painted more than two dozen canvases and paint-on-paper pieces that were birds’ eye views of these meetings. It was time to stop.

With more of these images than I could possibly display (let alone sell), Max-the-Cat, my Model, Muse and Snacks Manager, said “The hippos are coming and they need a place to hide.” Never argue with your Spokescat.

Creatures with antlers birds' eye view repurpose: hippo camouflage
Creatures with antlers birds’ eye view repurpose: hippo camouflage

 

Create Hippo Camouflage: Cut Strips, Squares and Rectangles

With more than enough painted papers, it was almost easy to start. But not quite. I love all of these sheets of whimsical shapes and the intense colors from Golden High Flow Acrylic paint. Finally realizing that I could paint more sheets if I wanted, it still took a while to get up the nerve to begin to cut.

Toolkit: TerraSkin, a tree-free paper that doesn’t stretch that I buy from the always-helpful staff at Saint Paul’s Wet Paint, a paper cutter, good scissors (Fiskars), and a Uhu archival glue stick. Gotta have it: good light and a comfortable chair.

 

Hippo Camouflage 1
Hippo Camouflage 1
Hippo Camouflage 2
Hippo Camouflage 2

 

 

 

Hippo Camouflage 3: Got Legs
Hippo Camouflage 3: Got Legs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hippo Camouflage: what could it be?

Think of a Hawaiian shirt on colored steroids, melted crayons (before your Mom noticed that you had done this on the floor), adventures in microscope viewing, or for people of a certain age, a very pleasant acid trip,

Hippo Camouflage 4
Hippo Camouflage 4

Hippo Camouflage: it’s working!

Hippo Camouflage 5
Hippo Camouflage 5
Hippo Camouflage 6: All covered up
Hippo Camouflage 6: All covered up

What next for hippo camouflage?

This hippo, who has not yet shared his name with me, is taking the rest of the week off while being coated with Golden Glass Bead Gel and Golden Self-Leveling Clear Gel. He sent a message to two of his friends, noting that hippo camouflage is pretty cool. They will get to Saint Paul next week. They hope to arrive in time for Art in the Hollow, an amazing day of art and music and fun and food in the magical Swede Hollow. June 2. Be there. Rain or shine.

Northstar Watermedia Artists’ Market Begins Today

Northstar Watermedia Artists’ Market at the MN State Fairgrounds

Celebrate the magic of watercolor with Northstar Watermedia Society’s members. Artists’ Market runs from May 19-21 at the Fine Arts Building at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Every artist begins with a tube or a block of paint. Every artist’s work is different. Come to be astonished. Enjoy free parking.

Explore Golden High Flow Acrylics‘ Fern Feet, aka Bloom

Learn how to add this feature to your work. On Sunday May 21 at noon, I will be present a demonstration focused on this feature of Golden High Flow Acrylics, and showing off the powerful colors of this line. I will also (again) thank Bonnie Cutts, our Golden Brand Artist in Residence, who reassured me that the fern feet were an actual feature of this paint that I’d picked up from a discount table at Dick Blick. I thought I’d gotten a bad bottle.

Golden High Flow Acrylic Fern Feet at Northstar
Golden High Flow Acrylic Fern Feet at Northstar

 

Paper Mosaic: Not Ceramic

The other part of my Sunday demonstration will be a step-by-step guide to creating mosaics from paper that look like ceramic tile. In my demo kit: gesso, watercolor and acrylic paints and mediums, TerraSkin, Golden Self-Leveling Clear Gel, offset spatula, scissors, and a heavy dose of imagination.

Orange 4-inch square magnet mosaic
Orange 4-inch square magnet mosaic

Holly Tree Memory

There once was a holly tree

Holly Tree Memory
Holly Tree Memory

There was a holly tree outside the kitchen window in my first “running away from home” apartment. It was tall and wide — kind of dumpy, actually. Bright and green all winter long, it was a high point in an otherwise dreary Washington DC metro winter. Its berries were beautiful. Red and redder than red.

This Holly Tree

I hadn’t thought about that tree for years until This Holly Tree emerged from a stack of “gotta finish this” paintings on my easel. What was left to do? Add the red berries. Done.

Life in the Holly Tree apartment was more or less carefree (except for the general angst of 20-year-olds, my parents’ consternation at this unconventional (gasp!) living situation, my then-boyfriend’s draft status, and my stolen VW Bug.)  This Holly Tree channels the memory, employs one of my favorite nanoscapes designs (tiny random shapes), and makes a shameless pitch for a skinny space on the wall. The original is for sale (5×15″ matted to 8.5×20″, $100) at the Vine Arts Holiday Sale (December 6, 12-5), and from me directly, thereafter. I will have prints, matted to 11×14 for $30 each.

Tiny random shapes on TerraSkin™

Each tiny random shapes piece begins with a very sharp General Pencil (6H) and a deep breath. Sometimes I make them in an order (spirals, straight lines) and sometimes their order is random. I drew This Holly Tree on the most wonderful paper called TerraSkin™ which I buy in sheets from Wet Paint in Saint Paul. TerraSkin™ is a tree-free paper made of 75% calcium carbonate and 24% binder. The combination makes a paper that is very smooth and buttery. Watercolor puddles and dries, making almost translucent color. Because the paint isn’t absorbed (it sits on top of the paper), watercolor paintings need archival spray for protection.

 

 

An Ode to TerraSkin

first-purple-zazzle
Hummingbird in Hyperspace. 4×6″ Original NFS. The image is on cool products at zazzle.com.
first-100
An early version of “Friendship: Complicated. Messy. Beautiful if you’re lucky.” Green watercolor floated on TerraSkin. Watercolor design painted with a 00 brush. Original Sold. Similar designs available at The Art Shoppe at Midtown Global Market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been a while since I started to paint on TerraSkin®, a tree-free paper that uses no water in its production.  Thanks to the great folks at Wet Paint, I have an inexhaustible supply. My favorite is the thickest (16 point . 25×35″ for $7.25/sheet) sheet. It comes in other thicknesses (4, 10, and 12 point).

When I first put paint into water (wet-in-wet) on this product, I said, out loud, “Hyperspace! I’ve seen those movies!” Thus were born the Creatures from Hyperspace.

TerraSkin® is an absolute pleasure to work with. The paint puddles and dries, so beginning a design as a wet-in-wet riot of color is a delightful first step on a creative journey. I approach this in two ways. I paint out a whole sheets or 4×6″ sheets that become Tiny Small Paintings. I mount each Tiny Small Painting archivally on mat board that is sized to fit a 5×7 frame. Each one has an envelope (for ease of gifting), and the painting and the envelope are packed in a Clearbag™.

plaid four fb
Plaid Pig from Hyperspace.

New Stone Paper: Terraskin™

During my last visit to Wet Paint, I bought a new-to-me bright-white paper called Terraskin™ which is made from 76% calcium carbonate and 24% high density polyethylene (a binding agent.) Neither trees nor water are used to make it. The manufacturer politely warns that it will begin to degrade if exposed to direct sunlight and moisture for six to nine months, but if kept indoors (my plan) it will be fine. It comes in three thicknesses, and I bought the thickest. A 16-point 25×35 sheet was $6.85.

Pencil and Watercolor on Terraskin
Pencil and Watercolor on Terraskin
Stone #1
Pencil & Watercolor
5×7″  $20.00

Love Terraskin

Unlike Yupo™, which is also tree-free, but is 100% synthetic, Terraskin™  is very smooth and buttery. I have never warmed up to Yupo, and find Terraskin™, very soft and friendly to touch and to work with.
It is very pencil-friendly, and takes watercolor beautifully. After finishing my painting, I hesitated to touch it because the little watercolor puddles looked shiny and wet. Nope.They were dry.
I am looking forward to drawing and painting on this surface.