Feeling Flamingos

I feel like painting flamingos, that is. I've been mulling this idea over all week and finally did a quick line drawing. I found a few references photos on PaintMyPhoto and worked with those as best I could. My plan so far is to work on Yupo with alcohol ink and collage. I'll be making my own collage paper so I'll have to sort out my colors, etc. The birds will probably be done with acrylic paint similar to the cats on Lunch Rush at Chez Dumpsta'. 

I'll be posting updates so stay tuned.....

Something Different

A little something different from me. I dreamed this one up...literally. The composition and the colors. I just wish I could get the colors to show true. For those that are familiar with Adirondack's 'Willow' alcohol ink that's the color in the sky, not Pesto green. I hate when these things happen. It's the funky 'Willow' green that makes the painting work IMO. Ah well....

This is another small work...5" x 7" on Yupo. I added some cut paper collage and flexible modeling paste. For the patterns in the white and red areas I painted over the alcohol ink when it was dry with black acrylic paint, then used an old credit card I had notched and dragged that through the wet paint until I was satisfied with the results. Voila! 

Varnish Day

It finally warmed up here at long last, warm enough to spray varnish outdoors. I sprayed my latest ink paintings including my bug series in batches and they are now curing before they will be mounted, matted and slipped into acetate envelopes. I belong to an inking group on Facebook and there seemed to be some confusion as to what varnishes work best on alcohol ink. Up until just lately I was using Krylon Gallery Series UV Archival gloss spray but I've found that Krylon's UV-Resistant Clear gloss works just as well and cost much less. One member of the ink group had heard that the gloss spray would disturb the ink but I found that it's simply not true.

A B. C?

Here is the repaired painting. I stenciled a honeycomb pattern on the background to finish the piece.

Hopefully this image will allow you to see the area of damaged Yupo I circled. When I'm working on certain insects I will cut away only a few sections of frisket at a time. In this case I saved the bee's wings until last so the Pitch Black and Yellow Sunshine ink wouldn't get on them. When I attempted to remove the frisket from the left wing I accidently dug into the surface of the Yupo and peeled off a thin layer leaving a rough area. I managed to solve the problem by cutting a piece of the glossy backing paper from the frisket into the shape of the damaged wing and gluing it in place with gel medium. Another solution could've been another piece of Yupo but I decided the backing paper would work best for this purpose.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I think I'm losing it and if winter doesn't end here soon in northern Michigan I'm going to completely lose my mind. Anyhoo, this is my latest bug, the wonderful bumblebee. I love to hear their deep throaty buzz in the garden on a hot summer afternoon.