Transcripts
1. Introduction: I don't know about you, but I really love to experiment
with my art supplies. I like to experiment
with different papers, different mark-making tools, different wet elements
that we can use in paint and just see what
can I make today. I didn't use to be
so free-flowing and go with the flow and
just see what you can get. Let's just have some
fun at my art table. I used to be a lot more
strict like I'm going to sit down and create
a masterpiece today. Then when you think what does
that masterpiece look like? You're like, I don't know. Then you don't even know
where to get started because you have
so many options, it makes things hard. I want to show you how
I've got past that. I'm Denise Love and I'm an
artist and I cannot wait to show you some abstracts
on mineral paper. I love abstract art and I don't know if you've
looked at my channel, but I keep thinking, am I going to run
out of ideas for abstract classes and
so far I haven't. I will go a week or two and think I've got a new
idea let's go try it out. I love showing that
excitement to you. I like creating
with new supplies, I like trying out
different papers. In this class, I want to show you some
abstracts on mineral paper. You're welcome as you create
the projects to create with what you have on hand to
do the different projects. I just like to show you new
things and give you my opinion and we'll see how
it works together. Then you can see
is that something that you're wanting to add
into your art supplies and try out yourself. I love the newness of the
supplies in the paper when I discover something, then I get so excited
and I want to go create. I also want to create
without being angry. I want to show you
projects today, we'll be creating some
little bitty abstracts to play with color, we'll be creating
some bigger pieces that I create with the
mindset of I can cut this up and I can create
other things with it. That is how I get past
blank page paralysis. How I get past what do I create? What if I sit down
and I don't like it? What if I sit down and I get mad because nothing great shows up? That's okay. I now create with
the anticipation of what can I cut this up into? Then I get excited about it. I don't worry about
what I'm creating. It mentally freed me to create some more authentic pieces
that when I'm done, I'm like, I created that and
I want you to have that too. We'll create a bigger piece and if we don't love
it, will cut it up. Little secret I cut mine up. Just create with the
fondness of experimenting. That's how we get to our style, that's how we figure
out what we like, what we don't like,
what we love. That's how we start
narrowing down the things that make up the
elements of the style that we were meant
to be creating in. I can't wait to show you
the different projects. We've got the little trip tick where we'll experiment with
paint and mark-making. We've got a bigger dip
tick, a little set, a two that we'll create
that may be perfect just as they are or maybe
we can cut those up. Then I experimented
with a third technique where we watered down the paint and worked in a thin layer and added pain on top of that, I just wanted to show you
some different options and different things
that you might try in your own art practice. I hope you have
fun with today on the three different projects
that I'm bringing to you. Let's get started.
2. Class Project: Your class project is to pick some of the
techniques that we tried today and come back and show me the abstracts
that you created. I can't wait to see what
colors you picked up, what techniques that
you wanted to try, and how you liked the mineral paper versus
some other type of paper. You are welcome to substitute the papers if you don't want to
use a mineral paper, you're welcome to
substitute any of the supplies that you have on
hand versus what I'm using. I just love to introduce
you to new products and new techniques and different considerations
for your art-making. Come back and share some of the abstracts that you
came up with in class. I can't wait to see those. Let's get started.
3. Supplies: [MUSIC] Let's take a look
at the different supplies that I'll be using in class. Everything that I'm
using is substitutable. Don't feel like you have to
have anything that I'm using. You can create wonderful
little abstracts substituting every item I'm
going to show you [LAUGHTER]. You can even
substitute the paper even though I'm
using mineral paper. Getting that out of the way, I'm going to be using
the mineral paper and what I like about mineral
paper is it's different. It's made of crushed rocks instead of trees like
watercolor paper. I thought, isn't that cool? It's a plasticky almost feeling
medium like a Yupo paper, but at the same time,
a little different. Yupo is very plasticky. Things don't soak in it all. It does not bend. This mineral paper
is made of rock. It is a little more
absorbent than Yupo but nowhere near as absorbent as regular watercolor paper. The reason that
matters is because you can put water on this
and it soaks right in. You can put water on this and it just sits on
top until it dries, and that's really cool. Another feature to
this rock paper, is you can fold it and bend it. That's a plus and a minus. The plus is you can bend
it if you need it to bend. The minus is it creases
and the ends stub and it's really thin, so
if you pick it up wrong, you end up with a dent or something that
you didn't intend. You do have to be very gentle with this paper when you use it so you don't end up with stubbed edges
and things like that that you weren't intending. The other thing about this
paper that I recently learned that could be a deal
breaker for you is it will disintegrate
in sunlight. How fascinating is that? That matters because
in the sunlight, if this is sitting say
on a table, in a window, the sun shines in for
a long period of time, it starts to disintegrate. You need to keep this paper
out of direct sunlight. Very important
[LAUGHTER] if you create an important piece out
of direct sunlight. Mineral paper is the
paper I'll be using, feel free to use that paper if you think it
looks interesting and you want to play on it. I like experimenting on different papers because
then I know how they act and react with
different supplies that I put on top of it. Then I know, do I like
it, do I not like it, and how best to work with it. So I like to experiment. I'm also got some
disposable palette paper because I'll be using some
different acrylic paints. I have a little pad of
that that I'll be using. I have lots of different
mark-making, paintbrush-y tools that we will experiment with. I've got some silicone brushes
and mark-making tools. I really love this
one by Catalyst and it's got little nubs
on it that make lines, so I particularly love that. Then I've got the Master's
Touch little silicone brush. This is the Catalyst
silicone brush, and I got a Catalyst wedge. These are all fun to play with. You don't need all of these. I just pulled out options that I thought I'd
want to work with in class. I also have a couple
of palette knives. They're good for
spreading paint, they're good for mixing paints. So I'll be using those
a little bit in class. Also got just a couple
of random paintbrushes that I'll be using in a couple
of different sizes maybe. I think after I got the
first project done, I don't think I went
back to a paintbrush in the other projects at all. If you've got it great
and if you don't, don't worry about it. I also used a water-soluble
piece of graphite in one of the classes
for some mark-making and I also used some extra
large charcoal squares. Just because I thought, what would happen
if I tried these? They're fun to try, I will
say, on mineral paper, because it's so smooth, there's nowhere for that
chalkiness of these to go so you end up with a
lot of the charcoal sitting on top of the paper. So that was interesting
and unexpected. I'm glad I tried
that and now I know. I also have Posca pens that I like to use
for mark-making. I got white and black so
we could be using that. Then I've got painter's tape, that's what I'm taping
my pages down with so that I can peel tape
and reveal after the fact. I also have the punchinella, I've got some shelf liner, and I've got this packing stuff that you can pop the bubbles. These are just some
random mark-making things that I've got available. I really loved using in class this no-stick shelf liner one. That one was actually
my favorite today. Then paint-wise, for
one of these paintings, I'll be using some of
these Charving colors. I've got greengold,
Caribbean pink, Alizarin crimson, and greengold. Then for one of the other ones, I'm using greengold and
Winsor Newton cerulean blue. I also have some indigo ink
that I might throw in there. Then for one of the projects, I have some really
high-flow paints, transparent yellow
oxide in the fluid, carbon black in the high flow. I'm using this a bit
like I use my inks in making some marks and lines. I also have Golden
Fluid raw amber, and I resisted pulling out my
mic of gold in this class. [LAUGHTER] Just giggle
with me there [LAUGHTER]. I'm using iridescent bronze
by Golden Fluid acrylic in one of my abstracts. Super fun there. I also like to mix my
acrylic paints with Gesso, so I have white,
black, and clear, got all the different sizes. I use that in the place
of white and black paint because it's cheaper
and it has grit in it. I use the clear usually with
my colored paints a lot if I don't want to
change the color because I want that paint
to be gritty enough for me to draw on top of them. That's what's going
to let me do that. I think I've got
all the supplies that I throw on you
in class today. You don't have to use any
of these if you don't want. Substitute any of them that you think you
need to substitute, and let's get started. [MUSIC].
4. Triptych Minis: Let's get started with a
little smaller triptych. I've got out a whole bunch
of yummy little items that I plan on using. I'm going to start off
with some acrylic paint. In my mind, I want to do some
type of blues and greens, and I'm going to go ahead
and take off my paint lids. If you've never tried one of
these golden paint openers, totally a paint saver
lets you get the lid off. Let me tell you
sometimes are so tight that I just twist the container and tear the container up. This is green gold by Charvin and I'm going to be using
Winsor Newton cerulean blue because I'm thinking
blue and green mixed together they'll give
me a really cool color, and it will also give me some other colors in
my finished abstract, then I've also got indigo ink that I could put on,
and the thing is, is you could start with
real dark and light on top, or you can layer all
your colors on top and do the dark at the end so that it's the very
last thing you do. This is just white Gesso. This is clear Gesso. With the mineral paper, what happens is this is
not going to soak in. So if you put the
dark down first, you're probably going
to have to let that dry and then layer on top of it. I'm thinking in my mind, maybe I'll do the dark last. We'll just see. Then I've got several little
mark making tools handy, I've got some palette knives, I've got some
silicone spreaders, got some paint brushes, and I've got some
mark making stuff that maybe I'll be using. This is the Punchinella, this is some shelf liner
that's no slick shelf liner and this is some bubble wrap. Just want to have some
of my favorite items here to play and just
see what do we get. I'm feeling like I
want to mix a few of these colors to
get a third color. I'm going to go ahead
and take my paintbrush and see if I can get
what I'm thinking in my mind for a third color here. I'm just mixing that blue, that green, and some white. I want some colors in between the two colors
that I've got here, just as some options. I might mix another one
over here with more blue, maybe use the white
and the clear and they're also
just experimenting and playing perfect opportunity to start mixing colors and see, are you going to get
what you wanted? I couldn't mix this
with a palette knife. I probably should have mixed
it with a palette knife, but I'm just playing and
we'll just see what we get. I don't know that I love
the color that I got. Let's just get our
palette knife out. See, much easier. Keep the paint in the
area that you want it. Yeah, I'm feeling
that a little better. I could put some blackout, but I have this
indigo over here. They would go like that better. Just needed that
little more blue. Now, I can just get
the paint off of here. I'm working on a triptych, so I've taped these
close together. I'm wanting these flow
from one to the other. I don't have anything specific in my mind that they're
supposed to do. But I want them to be
cohesive when I'm done. Let's just start painting them. These are really good for
holding a lot of water and I've just started off without a lot of water
on that paintbrush, so it hopefully it'll
dry pretty cool. But let's use a palette knife. Let's put this paint on with
things that aren't typical. If I do something on one, I'm probably going to do a little bit of that
on all three just to keep them flowing. I really liked the green gold. I do not like this greeny
color that I went with. This is very fun too if you pick a color
palette out of a book, which I did not do
today with this, but I might go back and do
it because sometimes picking your own colors a
little bit harder than just finding a color
set that you're like, look at this super cool. I find that using
interior design books and master studies, color palettes really helps me get something I like
a whole lot better. But let's just go for
this and see what we get. Because to somebody, this may be the
perfect color palette. It's the perfect one
for you, me, maybe not. Maybe we can go ahead and
start putting some marks and some lines and
drawing in these and seeing what we can do. Maybe get some paint on there and then start coming in with some of your mark making tools and start making your
favorite marks in here. I like dots, I like lines, I like things that
we smudge down in there like this where
I'm making lines, but I've also really getting something
deeper going in there. I like mixing the acrylic
paint with the Gesso because acrylic paint is
very, very plasticky. When you're all done, you are likely to not be able to layer things on top of it, and I may want to
continue painting on top, I may want to mark make on
top with pastels or pencils, or I might want to
mark make on top with Neocolor II crayons
after it's a bit dry and you're not going
to be able to do that, if you've just use the acrylic
paint, in all likelihood. You're going to
get caught up with that paint repelling anything
you try to put on top. I like to mix that in, which is why you see me dip
into the clear Gesso there. I think it's fun to try to
paint with other things. That's why I'm playing
with the palette knife, maybe paint with something
other than a paintbrush. It helps you get a
little bit looser. Helps you get marks
and lines and scrapes that you wouldn't get
maybe with a paintbrush. I am trying to use alternative
tools a lot of times when I'm doing abstract
for that reason. I think I'm going to take my
Punchinella and just see. I'm going to take
a palette knife and just squish that
in and pull it up and just see, do
I get any marks? This works particularly well
with the oil and cold wax. It digs down into the paint. Just playing and
seeing what I can get with different kinds of
paint on different surfaces, then I'll just wipe
that Punchinella off. Could also come in here with
the shelf liner and see, will that give me some dots? Trying not to squash it around. That's very interesting. See now as I'm
combining the paints. Look at that one. See now
that one's super cool because I had paint on it
that I then moved around. Super fun. This stuff is really wet. Before you can do some
things on top of it, you got to let some
of these layers dry. I think what I might do
is take one of my pencils and just come in here
with some marks on top. I really need my
mechanical pencil. That's the one I like. Here we go. I like the mechanical
pencil because, the lead is very fine. Then I can just
wipe it off here on my microfiber cloth that I love. Once you're thinking, got a big old mess, go in here. Then maybe consider adding something dark
on top as a contrast. This is indigo, this is
Daler-Rowney acrylic ink. I can add some ink on here as some lines and some movement. Can also come back in and move these lines around and make them do more
stuff if I want. I've got just a
silicone spreader here and I'm just lightly spreading that ink
around my piece there creating some
contrast on the very top. Now what I like about doing
these small pieces first is, this is how you can really
experiment with colors and see, do I like
this color palette? Do I hate this color palette? Because now that
I've got it on here, it's not at all what
I wanted in my mind. It's not what I imagined. Now l can do like a whole
bunch of these little sets and pick my very favorite
to do larger pieces with. I'm just scooting
that ink around. Then we can come and
drag through this with our silicone
spreader if we wanted, we could drag some lines. Like it. See I like this
piece right here. Another thing that keeps me from getting upset
with pieces I love or don't love or
that don't turn out. I'm always keeping in my mind, I can cut this up to
make something else. I don't have to love what I did. I can always cut
this up and create other things that I love
with some junk art collage. Or I can just cut this
into a better composition. Especially on the bigger pieces, you can cut little
compositions out of there. This is just some white
just so I'm going to see if I can't just
make some fun drags and some little marks. Because, after doing this, I can already tell you this will not be my color way
on my big piece. I want you to do
a bunch of these until you find a color way
that you're like, this is it. Let's go ahead. It's all wet, but I want to see what
we're even working with. I'm going to peel tape because, I don't really know if I love it until I peel the tape
and then I'm like, I love it or no
not what I wanted. But see, look at this, now I've already started
peeling the tape. The white edge already
looking better. This is the magic
of peeling tape. It's even the thing that
you think I'm going to hate this might end up being
something where you're like, Oh, that's actually
pretty darn cool because, now look at that. I almost feel like
we're at the ocean and it's like an ocean
scene or something. Liking that. Let's go ahead and peel
these other ones off. The tape peel is magic. Magically makes me love stuff I thought
might not like it. Feeling like on the larger ones. Maybe I'll go back with some favorite colors
will see, look at that. Looks a million times better as soon as we peel that tape, I did go a little thicker. This is also the best
time to experiment with technique and
paint thicknesses. I went a little thicker
on the paint here, then I might on a
watercolor paper or it feels a little
thicker because, it all stays wet
for so much longer. I think that might be it, stays wet for so long. Look at these. You can see these don't take
a whole long time to paint. Unless you're waiting
in-between layers, but they still are
very easy and fun. Check how cool these are. I doubted the colors, but now that we've
peeled the tape and I can see in as
a little triptych. I think that's pretty darn cool. Look at that. All right crazy. Not my normal colors did not turn out at all like I expected. But now as a triptych, look
how freaking cool, those are. Super fun. I want you to do a lot of these and what I like about this is you can take the larger
mineral paper pad, I have the big pad of these. Then I just cut this
paper into fours and that's how I got the size. I want you to experiment working on a triptych across
a set of three, tape them very close together and do a bunch of these
experimental colors. Pull out your books that
are your favorite to maybe get color palette
inspiration from and say, what can I create
with this triptych today and these little small pieces? Then we can move
into a larger piece when we find some color
palettes that were like, okay, this is amazing. These actually way cooler
than I was expecting. With the tape on it, you always need to wait
until the tape peel before you judge
something because, look how cool that turned out. Let's move on to a larger piece. I'm pretty excited now.
5. Large Diptych Painting: Let's do a bigger piece. In one of my classes,
I was reminded because I love it when
people introduce me to interesting art supplies because I have an art
supply addiction. But, making these
workshops is feeding that addiction and helping because now I'm using
all these fine supplies, and I'm sharing them with you, helping your art addiction. Somebody reminded me about these yummy
extra-large charcoals. I'm like, oh yeah, we
need to get those out. I have some yummy big
blocks of Darwin charcoal that I think would make
some fun mark-making and it could mix
in with the paint because it is still a powder as we're putting
it on our paper, so could give us some
interesting effects. Then, of course, you
can play with pencils and Neocolor II crayons and any mark-making
tool that you have. It's all about just
experimenting and playing and not being too
serious about stuff. I approach all my
pieces like this, then I'm not sure where we go when it's going to be abstract. I approach all of these
pieces with the option, in my mind, I've already
given myself permission. I can cut these
up into something that I really like a lot better if it's not working
out the way I thought. I also have by putting out
some of my favorite colors, work with any colors you want, and you can substitute any
supplies that you want. This is really fun and forgiving and really lends itself to
every medium you can think of. I'm using the Charvin
green gold, olive green, Caribbean pink, and
the Alizarin Crimson. I'm doing this on
that mineral paper, which is completely different
than a watercolor paper. It's a different texture,
it's a different feel, it's going to accept the
materials completely differently than if I
were using like say, a watercolor paper. This is really absorbent
and this is not. But the flip side of that, this is not really absorbent, so I can use a lot
of water on it and it's not going to warp. Whereas if I were using a regular piece of
watercolor paper, this would warp even
on small pieces. I do give myself options here. This piece of paper, I'm going to do it with a
lot of dry materials maybe, and then it would be really fun on a third project to
do a lot of wet stuff and let that dry and
see what it does. Let's do this big project. I'm really feeling here
this yummy looking maroon. These are very dark, so I'm not sure what
each of those are. This one looks like
a chocolate color and then these look
really dark like a black, but I know that this
is a really pretty. Look at how pretty that is. But you can see it's a powder and it's not got any
texture on this paper to let this stuff sink
in a little bit the same that it does on a
watercolor paper. You can see that I'm
leaving a lot of powder behind by using a
powdery thing like this. That was pretty interesting
to see that then. I'm not super worried at
this point about composition and what I'm going
to end up with, I just want to play and
see where can this go. Let's start with that. Let's set these where I'm not going to dump them everywhere. I've got some yummy mark-making, I've got some palette
knives over here, I've got silicone spreader, I can spread paint with that. I got lots of little options and my paints are out over here. I'm just going to, it's hard to have this on
the table at the same time. I really loved this pink. I've got white, clear, black, Gesso, and my four
colors already out. I really want to mix maybe this Black Gesso with this green and get something really
dark to start with. I might just spread these
with a palette knife. I could do it with my fingers, I could also spread
this with my spreader because it's going to
help me really get that first layer, not as thick. Wow, look at that, super fun. Because if you work in thinner
layers with this stuff, we can maybe layer more in here. We've got the little one I
worked with real thick layers. Maybe as you build your
way up to the next size, try to thin these layers out, and that will afford
you extra layers that you'll be able
to put in these. I'm loving it already. The other one I was like, soon as I started
putting those colors on, I was like, do I love this? I'm not sure. This one I'm already
feeling maybe we'll see. I want to love this green gold. Like I want to love it. I love it and I hate it. I have a love-hate
relationship with green gold and I don't know if
you know what I mean. But I want to love it. But so far sometimes
in some pieces it's amazing and then in
other pieces I'm like, what the heck was I thinking? It's really funny. I don't know if there's a
color like that for you. Is there a color
that you're like, oh, I love this so much? I just can't love it. I don't know why
I can't love it. What I like about the
silicone spreaders as you just wipe them
off, keep on painting. Let's just see what else. You can paint with your fingers. I'm feeling, let's
get in here with some Caribbean pink just
to get that little started and maybe I'll go ahead and put some more
of this on here. Got this pretty burgundy
are the Alizarin Crimson, sorry, calling it burgundy, but will all know it's
the Alizarin Crimson. I've got the Black Gesso. I can come in here
with some black. Now, the reason I like using Black Gesso a lot of times, is because it's
basically acrylic paint, but it's a lot cheaper
than acrylic paint. Mixing it in with
your other stuff, it's already got that
grit and texture. Now, I know that I can
draw on top of these because as we were talking
in the smaller project, acrylic paint is
basically plastic, and so it's really really
thick and rubbery. I'm thinking of my
catalyst wedge here when I just said that. How funny I was looking
at it and talking. It's really shiny and does
not layer things on top of it because of that plasticky. Sometimes I can paint and
talk and sometimes I can't. But because of the plastic
qualities of acrylic paint, you cannot layer
things on top of it very easily unless you make sense something
with some grit. That is why I mix in the Gesso because now it's got some grit. I can paint on top of it. I can draw on top of it. I can use charcoal and
pastels on top of it. I'm giving myself some options when I add that grit
that I don't have if I was just using
acrylic paint. I also weirdly enough, love the texture and the
blend ability of the paint when I've got that Gesso. It gives it a different
way that it blends and I love that when
I'm mixing colors. I just like how that makes it where I can blend
things differently. I'm just doing some
painting with my fingers, adding in some white, some of this pink,
some of this crimson. I could also do some of
this painting with a brush. I've got these other
silicone brushes here that I could come back and start moving things if I don't want to use
a regular paintbrush and you don't want
to use your fingers. Your choice there. Get creative here. Layer, mark make. Oh, that's mark make. Hang on. Let's add some of
this over here. Acrylic paint dries pretty fast, but it's going to dry a little
bit less fast on this paper because this paper is not soaking any of
that acrylic paint in, so it is going to
not dry as quickly. It's an interesting
observation as you're working. Let's do some mark-making. I like to draw with
my mechanical pencil just to get marks in there. You do some of your
favorite marks. I like lines, I like dots. We should totally get our
Posca Pens out after this and do some dots on
some of the dry areas. Should have maybe done that
on the little bitty ones, but those little bitty
ones had so much paint, and they're going to
take a while to dry. Don't ever think that
you can't go back to a piece even after
you peel the tape off. Do you know what? You can put more tape on. You can always go back. Then if you've got marks where you didn't want
them, just come back, you can spread those
in if you're too busy. Now I can start
working those back in and doing some other stuff. I don't know if
you can see that, but I love what that
did right there. It's a very interesting
set of marks. Now, almost don't want to
ever go back over that again. I'm like avoid that spot. It's amazing. What I just did there? That's why I like using stuff
like these little spreaders because this right here
too super beautiful. See right there. Look what I got right there. I love that. I'm just mixing on my
palette over here, the pink and the white. I'm just grabbing
some of that pink and a little bit of that white and having those both
on my brush here. Look at that right there. Then again, I'm not
overstressing myself with, I got to make something amazing on this piece that
I can't cut up. I'm always creating with the
possibility of cutting it up. Let me tell you. The stress and pressure
that you put on yourself when you remove that this
has got to be amazing and perfect on the
very first try will make you so much
happier to paint and create. Because part of making art is
not supposed to be so hard. It's hard work, but some of
that is not getting so upset and stressed working
on something that you then don't come
back and create again. I've got to make art fun. What's fun to me? Not having all that pressure
on myself to create something so amazing that when I didn't create
that, I'm angry. I have had a lot of
time at my art table where I've left
angry, so I get it. Or where somebody didn't tell me or I didn't give myself
permission to create with abandon and just see where it leads you. Maybe use colors that you love or maybe use colors that
you're like, I hate that. Or maybe you didn't end up with the most amazing piece
as a large piece. But what if I cut a
piece out of there? Then it is amazing because I'm really feeling
this right up here. When you create
with that abandon, and you give yourself
permission to not have something amazing at your
table the very first try, but maybe we'll cut this up into other parts of
our art practice or maybe we'll use this in
some other interesting way. When you give yourself
those permissions, you stay longer,
you create more, and then later,
you're more likely to create gigantic big
pieces that you love. Because now you know, it's just a process of
working through stuff until you get beautiful things. It's okay. I'm going to let you see all
my flaws as I'm creating. Maybe we're not going
to get beautiful stuff and in the end, does it matter? Did you have fun creating? Because now I'm creating and I know that I can
still use this later. How fun these are
dragging lines. I love this little
catalyst 1, 5. This is a B, this is a 1, 5. It's just like a little, let's see if it's got a name. I've got the tag down here. I haven't had this very long. It's something I
wanted to play in. This is Item B15-05, 15 millimeters,
Princeton artists brush. Super cool. I actually found this recently. I'm like, look how
fun this thing is. Maybe I need it. Now that I've used it, I'm so glad I bought it. These are amazing. See how much fun you have
when you're just mixing and you're not worried about, is this an amazing masterpiece? You really give yourself
permission to do fun stuff. Let's use this dot thing
and move it around. Look at that right there. I picked up that heavy paint
right there and made that. Let's do that again. It's your birthday. Build up a little
presents like this That was fun. I do feel like we may be
cutting this up in the end, but that's okay. That is okay. Because I'm already
excited about a few things that
we just created. Look at that. Look at these. I can see some of these. When we pull the tape, we might actually love it. Definitely keep
that option open. I've got a sharp end here at
the end of my palette knife. I could come back through and just do some
more lines in here. It's all about the layering, the lines, the
interesting marks. Some of this is drying
already, so that's good. Those dots, I'm
insane about the dots that I created with
the shelf liner. I do feel good that some
of these are drying because we can come
on top of that with something
else if we wanted, or I could do the
ink on top of that, I could do gold on top of that. I could do lots of
things on top of this. Let's let this dry
some and come back. Maybe with the Posca Pen. Maybe we could take the
tape off too and decide, are we going to keep
it as one big piece or are we going to cut
these into smaller pieces and just see what we get? Let's let this dry
some and I'll be back.
6. Large Diptych Cut Up: All right. This is
90 percent dry. There's still a
couple of pockets of paint that are real thick, but it's dry enough for me to start making some decisions. I'm going to move my paint
out of the way as I think about this as an abstract. So one of the problems
that I especially run into myself is with larger abstracts, there's usually
too much going on, at least in my mind for
the pieces I create. I tend to like to go in tight. Like with my photography,
I like close-up. I like the subject field frame, and I have a really
hard time pulling back and getting
the larger picture. So with abstract going
larger with pieces, this is a 9 by 12
two sheets of paper, I tend to still focus on putting a lot in there
and then thinking, is that too much for
the larger piece? Do I need to look at it really close and cut pieces
I love out of it so that there is defining elements in there that make it an abstract that's
more pleasing? When I say that, like
the composition, do I have a defined composition? Do I have enough
light and dark in these pieces for them to
work as a whole piece? As I evaluate these pieces, then I start to think, well, maybe or maybe not. Then maybe if I were to look at these through a viewfinder, so I have some mat board here that I got
at the art store. This got two mats on it. That tape I think came off my piece that I've
taped together. So I would be able to now
look at this and say, wait, is this a better
composition because now I can see movement and line, and light and dark, and I can feel that that
right there is more exciting perhaps than the big piece
of page that I created. You don't have to get mat
board from the art store, you can cut your
own out of pieces of watercolor paper or, here's where that
tape came from, a piece like this
where I've just cut strips and taped
it into a square, and then maybe I can
put that here and say, oh, now, I can
see my composition, and my marks, and my contrast and
I feel that this is a much better composition than the little bit larger
piece that I created, and then I could find
little compositions in there for some little mini
abstracts to go with it. This is why I always
create with the intent of, okay, I can cut this up so
it's not as much pressure. Look at these, I just
love those dots. Let's take the tape off and then evaluate if we love it because you can't really
evaluate with a tape off. Tape peeling is the magic, and then we will see. Let's judge after
we've pulled tape. Because then you can really see did you nail it or do you want to go
ahead and cut some up. I am feeling that one right
there was amazing, though. We'll see. I don't know, though. Once I peel this tape, I'm like, "Ooh." I do start off trying
to at least maybe consider that this is going to be freestanding pieces of art, so I want the edges to be clean. I go ahead and tape
them similar and we'll just see what we get. Now, the nice thing
about this paper versus watercolor paper is the tape
doesn't tear the paper, especially on cheaper
watercolor papers. They're made with wood pulp, and I think that
wood pulp just grabs on that tape and
does not let go. See? Now, as we're
getting this peeled, I'm feeling better about my
big abstract. Look at this. Don't judge it before
you peel the tape. Once you've got the tape peeled, now you can say, okay, how do I feel about these
as a pair like they are, and I am still feeling like
maybe I want to cut them up. So I loved that right there. I just knew that right there I'm feeling
that, I love it. I'm loving this pink up here, but I don't like
it as that square. Do we like it as a rectangle? My feeling like there is
better movement, color. Wait a minute. What
if we turn them? Before you really
judge your piece, turn it around to all the
different areas and angles. Because when we turn this one, now I'm feeling
that right there. I'm feeling that right there. Let's get our paper chopper and I'm going to cut this down. Let's just cut it up.
Cut it up, people. Cut it up. I don't
really need that ruler. I'm going to go ahead
and just chop it. Let's just be brave. Be brave. Let's see, where do we
want to chop it at? Do I like it all the way over? Do I like it where
it's coming in? Do I like it right there? Feeling like right there, so I want to chop it
about right here. I do like on the paper chopper because I have a better
chance of getting it straight than I
do with my scissors. Look at that, just
chopped it right up. Now that we've chopped off the white edges,
let's just chop them. We've not wasted our scraps, we can now use those in
other pieces of art. I like this as a big square, even though I just did that
as a rectangular view. Look at that as a bigger square. Look how good that
turned out like that. Now I told you'll get excited about that
one. Oh, my goodness. That made my day. I really loved this
side over here, so let's get the
square one back out. I could make it a pair. If I could go ahead and say
I loved this right in there. Did all of that right
there? I think I did. What do we think? Yes, I think
I love that right there. Let's go ahead and I could trim these with the intent
of them being the same size. Let's just get started. I'm feeling like that
was right about there. Is that right there? Let's
come a little further. Just be brave and do
it. Don't even think. Look at that. Look at that. Now, you know what we could do? We can make these two long irregular sized pieces
if we wanted to have two long stripy things because I can feel
if I cut this off, look at that right
there, what's leftover. That is an option. If I want to make these
about the same size, let's see how far over
I can cut. Let's see. Let's just chop our edges off. I'm feeling good about this. I didn't even start this project out with the intent to cut up, but I always paint. No one I have that option. I don't have to worry if
something is not working out. Look at that. Look at
how good those are now. Now, I can see movement, I can see contrast, I can see that I haven't put my subject smack
dab in the middle or I have so much
action going on that we can't see
different elements. Oh, my goodness. Those are crazy beautiful. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Now, I'm feeling good
about today's project. This is what makes painting fun and how you do
it without killing yourself, stressing about
creating a masterpiece because I just created
two masterpieces. What do you think?
Go with me on this. Do you see a horse or a unicorn? Didn't that feel like a unicorn? Here's the head and here's
the horn coming out of there. I feel like I made a unicorn. Who doesn't love a unicorn? Only better thing could
be like if I made an angel right in the
middle of my piece. We all need angels and unicorns. Here we go, let's just go ahead. Let's create two oblong. Look at that. Look at that. That's super cool. All right. Let's make another
one to match it. All right. Same size.
What size is this? Let's get this on here. I'm not feeling this corner. That's why I'm feeling pretty
good about cutting this in the same spot in making two elongated pieces that
can be their own pair. Look at this, almost feel like those little dots turn these into like a little
flower garden. Look at this. Oh, my gosh. Definitely could be a flower
garden right in here. I feel like that
could be flowers. Look how pretty as a pair. I'm loving these. We're going to call
these the flower garden and maybe we'll call this other one unicorn
in the forest or something because I swear
it looks like a little unicorn hiding out in the trees. Oh, my goodness.
Okay. So I hope you love creating great big
piece on mineral paper, and then if you don't
love-love what you created, cut it up so that
you do love-love it. Because now, these are crazy fun and I'm in love with them. The only other
thing that I might mention is now that
you've got them cut up and in some formats
that you're just gaga over, now is your time to perhaps come back with a paint pen
or any other kind of mark-making that you
feel inclined to do and now is the time to do any additional
marks, dots, lines, anything on top that you're
feeling inspired to do, now is that moment to go
ahead and finish your piece. This would be like your moment
to finish and just see, does the little marks add any extra little bit
of magic for you? Because little tiny
white dots finishing off the composition always
makes me a happy camper. Even just that tiny bit completely changed
the look for me. I want you to have
some fun at the end. Even though you're
like, oh my God, I love this so much, evaluate it and see. Could I make it even that
much better with a few dots or some lines or some
marks? All right. I hope you love
doing this project, even if you don't cut
yours up like I did, and I'll see you in
the next project.
7. Free Flowing Abstracts: I've got two pieces of paper taped down for a
little dip tick. These are just half sheets
of the mineral paper, so I just took that 9 by
12 and cut it in half. You can see, that's about half. I thought, what if we did completely different
color palette, a little bit different
technique here? Let's work with a
neutral palette. I've feeling like and I've got, hold your horses here. I'm not pulling out
the marker ink. Iridescent bronze
in the golden fluid and transparent yellow oxide, raw umber have a little bit
of black in the high flow. I've got a spray bottle
over here with some water, wanting to do something
a little more liquidy. I could even take
a small container, put some liquid and
some paint in it, and then pour it out almost feeling like
I might like that. Let me grab some of these because I can just mix stuff
with water and pour it out. That might be fun too. I do actually have
some paint water over here that still clean, I might use that. Then let's just see
what we can create. I'm feeling like this
could be super cool. I've got raw umber. What if we start out with one
color that we pour on here? Then the other colors we
can paint on top of there, what if we do that with, watch this not
have any painting? Oh, yeah, it does,
but it's real thick. Look at that. Let's just dip some
water into this. Not going to dip. Just pour a little water. That was a lot of water. We're going to go with it. Got a little stickier. Let's just make
this yellow water. That fluid acrylic is
drying up because, let me tell you, fluid acrylic
is not normally this thick. That's what happens
when you keep your paints forever like I do, and it's sometimes years before you come back
to a specific color. How crazy is that? Now, we'll say mixing this with water breaks down the pigment. It does not. Then the pigment
to the point that it's still highly concentrated
in that water solution like we're actually
breaking down the pigment. I'm okay with that. If we wanted to
disperse the pigment without breaking it down, we could use airplane
medium instead of water. It lets that pigment stay
really bright and saturated and vibrant and doesn't
break it down to the point what I'm doing here
with this water. Just different options there, but I am really
loving this color. I don't like that that paint
in there has thick sections because that's going to
come out on our paper. It's almost like maybe we need
to strain it out of there or I needed to do
something else. But you know what, we're
just going to go for it. Once we get it where
we're thinking, "Okay. I think I got it mixed
in pretty good," we're going to do
something crazy and just poured out here, and let it do its thing. Look how crazy this is looking right here with
that paint in it. I might take a palette knife, spread this out some. Now, the thing about
doing this this way is now we're definitely
going to have to let this dry before we can
put stuff on top of this. While it's wet, maybe I can
work some of that pigment in. Might be interesting in the
end to see what did that do? We'll see. We'll just let that
dry and do its thing, and then come back and
paint on top of that. I'm going to be back in a bit. These are not 100 percent dry, but thereabout 90 percent dry. You can still see
the wet parts here. Look how cool that is though. I think I want to come back
now and add some marks and maybe some other pink colors and just see what can
we turn this into? I've got some water soluble
art graphite, 6B graphites. This my water-soluble pencil, and I'm just really intuitively just start making some marks. There's nothing really
particularly going for here other than just what feels good in
the moment as I'm drawing. I can come back
and add some more. Then I could start coming
in here with some paint. I might put these on with a
silicone spreader or perhaps, so I could do that. I could go ahead and grab
my palette paper here, I've got some paint from
the last project on there. Let's go ahead and
start with a new page. I got some raw umber and I've got some of
this yummy bronze. Let's just shake that up. It doesn't mean I won't
still pull out the gold if I feel like it needs it
a little bit of black here, and the black is so fluid I could almost just
put that on our page. Let's just reserve
that for a moment. I've got the umber. Let's just start just
doing something. Nothing specific
here I'm going for. I'm just wanting some marks and some interests,
some contrast. I like they were going from
one page to the other here. I like that right there. I could come back
in with some lines. I like the lines. Loving some more, I like lines and dots. I'm doing it on one side. I am trying to in some way
incorporated on the other side. Look how pretty
that already looks. I love it when I start
seeing something. Here's that bronze. When I'm putting
that color down, I'm just try not to
lay it in the center. I just don't want it to be
something that's right there, so centered that I'm like, what did I just do? Somehow I got maybe
this isn't even open. Let's see. Look there. It would help, if I took off
the little ceiling thing, wouldn't it? Because a little bit of black. But do I want black? Could do this with
the ink instead. Well, let's just go for it. Let's just see. Let me get it. Yes, see now filling that, let's just draw this here. It is very fluid and I'm using it about the
same way that I use the ink. I'm just putting
that look at that. Now, I'm feeling this,
look how pretty that is. See now we need to let
that dry a little bit. But what do you think about maybe some black Posca Marks
or some type of black dots, black ink because, I usually
go with white or gold. But what if we do little
black dots as a last touch? I'm going to let this
dry a little bit and find a black Posca
Pen, and I'll be back. Our piece is not a 100 percent, but we'll say it's
98 percent dry. There's some really thick
areas that are still wet. At this point we could say, do we want to add any marks and see what else that it needs
while it's still taped up? Or we could remove
the tape and valuate. Where's this at? Does it need anything else? I've got a black Posca Pen here that I could very easily
come back in here and add some dots wondering
though, does it need it? If you're looking at
it and you're like, doesn't need it, does it
not need it? \I don't know. Peel the tape off and look at it and evaluate it if
you're not sure. That's what I'm going to do. We're going to peel the tape and evaluate it and say, does it
need anything else? Another thing we
could have considered was some splatters of
little paint speckles which have a few in that
original layer that we put down. But do we need some more? Did I need more paint splatter? That's another thing we
could have thought about. Then another thing that I could have thought about,
any other mark-making, just not Posca Pen, but do I need lines and dots from maybe some graphite
or something like that? Another thing that we
could have done is several different
transparent layers where we threw the
paint down as liquids. The only drawback to that
is watching the paint dry. You really have to
do that dual-layer and then be willing to
leave that till tomorrow and come back and
do the next layer. I didn't quite get that
underneath the tape. That's okay. Again, just like with
everything else I create, I reserve the right
to cut these up. Because that sunk
underneath the tape, I might trim those tighter with my trim tool
when these are dry. I think I will. I think I'm
going to trim these in. I know the paint is
not a 100 percent dry, but I could go ahead
and do some trimming. Let's just trim it because, I'm distracted by that. We're just going to
be very careful. Cut these edges and then see
what did we end up with? Did we love it? You can see it was dry
enough for me to do this without making a big problem. But I feel like a
little bit tighter in. Look at that. I'm filling it now that I've trimmed off the under
the tape edge pots. I'm definitely feeling this. I can see a whole series
of ones similar to this where you are doing layers. There's a wet spot. I've got one spot on this
one that's super thick that I just need to not
touch till it's dry. It'll have to sit overnight. That's definitely so thick. There's one spot on each
of these, that's so thick. That is going to
have to sit awhile and I will tell you also, I hit these with a heat gun
trying to dry them faster. While this paper does take a lot more water
than normal paper, I think on the
areas of the paper where I got real close
with the heat gun, it actually did slightly
change the paper, slightly warped. I would recommend and
some of these things I do on camera because, I could have just pretended
I didn't do that, but I do these on camera
so that you know, in your own art practice
what to expect. With the mineral paper, I wanted to see how
the heat gun worked. If I dry this faster
with the heat gun and some of these layers
are so heavy that they may be shrunk up
and grab the paper and that may be the crinkle that I'm seeing in this because, this was a really
thick area of paint. Or it could have been the heat itself actually
affected the paper. But I almost feel like because, of where these wrinkles
are occurring there along the really thick
black paint that when those dried faster, I think they cranked the
paper like they grabbed it. I would recommend
painting some layers, setting it to the
side and coming back later and letting
those dry because, that's what you're
going to end up with and I want you to know that
before you do it on your own and have a piece
that's so amazing and then you're like, no. This was very interesting
observation because, those are following the
line of that thicker paint. Now we know together. Then look at it. Do you need any other lines? Do we need any more dots? Maybe I would come
back with my graphite and add some more lines in there or some little hash marks. Any other little
mark-making thing that you like to do that you
think, that would be cool. I want you to evaluate and
then do those at this point. Then once you've got that done, I can't wait to see
what these look like. I can't wait to see this with some transparent layers,
some thick layers, maybe a little bit of some type of iridescent layer like I did, and just see what we
can come up with. I hope you enjoy doing
a project like this. I'll see you back in class.
8. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] What do you think about the
different techniques and the different projects
that we created in class? I want to see what
was your favorite, what did you end up
really loving and think, I'm going to go try that one, come back and share some
of your projects with me. Don't hesitate to substitute
any of the supplies that you have on hand at your own art station to
do these projects with. It's not about creating
the same thing that I'm creating with the exact same
supplies I'm creating with. I'm creating with
what I have on hand, with the colors that
I'm hoping I'm going to love and I want you
to do the same thing. If you don't have mineral paper, I just wanted to introduce you to a different type of paper, but don't feel like you have to create on that type of paper. If you love some of the
techniques that we were doing in class do it on watercolor paper and
just see what you think. I can't wait to
see your projects. Come back to share those with me and I'll see you
next time [MUSIC]
DENISE LOVE, Artist & Photographer
