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.

The Fly

This one took two tries and it still could use some grounding with a few shadows now that I see it on screen. I used Ranger Pearl mixative on the wings to make them look more fly wing-y and I added the veining with a Prismacolor colored pencil...Violet Blue, I think. A waxy pencil on Yupo, you say? I know but I'm fairly certain it'll be permanent after a good spray or two of Krylon gloss varnish.

Which Came First?

The cocoon or the bug? Well, in this case, the chrysalis. I used Adirondack Copper mixative on the bark of the branch. It has great texture that works well for this type of application. When the inks were dry and the frisket film was removed I went over everything with a wash of Da Vinci green gold fluid acrylic thinned with a little water and let it puddle and dry. That produced some nice texture in the background.

More Bugs

Here's the latest efforts, hot off the easel. I may have to redo the yellow moth. If you look closely I forgot my own advice and cut into the Yupo too far. It's easy to do. I should have another update tomorrow but there may be a very short break while I wait for more frisket film and liquid frisket to arrive from Blick. I was surprised how quickly I ran out!

FYI, if you want perfection don't work with these inks, at least not in this manner. There will invariably be imperfections here and there. As Vivi at the gallery says, "it's the hand of the artist". Much like watercolor, these inks work best if left to go their own way to some extent.

Found a Bug in My Painting

It's always fun to apply acrylic gesso to a surface, then work it around with a palette knife or whatever is handy. After it's dry, the textures that occur as a result can be very exciting. Last night I had a swatch of paper I had coated with gesso and I began to slosh paint on it. I love to watch the paint settle into all the little nooks and crannies and lo and behold, I spotted insect wings! The more I looked, the more came into focus. A thorax, some insect-y legs...definitely a bug. I added some eyes, some antennae and voila! Try painting on gesso. The results are never the same twice and it never gets boring. 

A Katydid & a Ladybug

'Ladybug' and we all know one or two.

'Katydid' and she did come to visit me last summer.
 I was fortunate to snap a photo before she went on her way.

It just never came together for me.

My sketch

Not all bright ideas pan out. I worked up a sketch on pad paper that looked like it might work. Alas, it did not. In the process of coming to that conclusion I used up a lot of ink and almost an entire bottle of Ranger blending solution which isn't cheap so I did the next best thing....I cropped it into two separate ink paintings. The original painting was my largest so far being 17" x 12".

I wanted to try out my new Ranger ink colors...Pitch Black and Pesto(green). Pesto behaves much like the rest of the Ranger inks (aside from the mixatives) but Pitch Black is thicker and it takes a lot of blending solution to make it move. From now on it will be used in smaller works until/unless I order more blender. I do love it, though. I works so well to tie the Micron line work into an ink painting, adds wonderful contrast and drama and it truly is pitch black.