Sunday, February 26, 2017

A Thought for Sunday, February 26, 2017

"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me." -- Fred Allen

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Image Transfers the Easy Way

Image transfers add so much to a work of art. Many of the collages and mixed media works I create have at least one, sometimes more. I've always made them the conventional way: print out the image using a laser printer, and apply several coats of gloss medium to the back, allowing each to dry completely before adding another coat over it. Then moisten the back of the image with water and rub...and rub...and rub....until all the little paper crumbles are removed.

Like Watching the Barn Roof Rust

What makes this process so time consuming and boring is the need to let each layer of medium dry in between applications. In my humid climate that can take most of an afternoon.

Newsflash: There is a better way! I stumbled upon it while re-reading Patti Brady's excellent book, Rethinking Acrylics:Radical Solutions for Exploiting the World's Most Versatile Medium (North Light Books).  Her method seriously reduces the amount of time it takes to obtain an image that's ready to use.

It's So Simple

Patti's secret? Use Clear Tar Gel to coat the back of the image. Just ONE coat is all you need! Make sure every part of the back is covered with the Tar Gel and that it's TOTALLY dry before you immerse the paper in clean water for a minute or two. Then proceed to rubbing...and rubbing....and rubbing...

Just to be safe, I let my Tar Gel-coated image dry overnight.

Why, oh why, did I not notice this gem of a tip earlier? (Like, years ago.) It really accelerates a tedious process and produces a nice, clear transfer. Thanks to Patti Brady, the time it takes to make an image transfer has been cut in half. Now, that's something to celebrate!

©2017 Lynn Edwards

Sunday, February 19, 2017

A Thought for Sunday February 19, 2017

"A newspaper reported that I spent $30,000 a year buying Paris clothes and that women hate me for it. I couldn't spend that much unless I wore sable underwear." -- Jacqueline Kennedy

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Don't Miss This! The Art of Merrill Mahaffey at the Booth

My husband knows how much I love art museums, so he made sure one of my Valentine's Day presents was a trip to the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville. When we arrived, I headed straight for the special exhibition of Merrill Mahaffey's fabulous art on the museum's second floor.

    © 2017 Merrill Mahaffey 
If you've never seen Mr. Mahaffey's large scale landscapes, you're in for a treat IF you can get to the Booth by closing time on Sunday, Feb. 19. That's when the temporary exhibition of his work, "65 Years of Chasing Sunlight," ends. 

Mahaffey works primarily in acrylics, and so do I, so I was most interested in how he achieves such amazing textural effects in his paintings. The terrain of the American Southwest with its cliffs and canyons is what Mahaffey captures so eloquently. Each work is infused with light and is so atmospheric that to stand before any one of his paintings is like standing in the actual location depicted. These photos, taken at the museum by Hubs, don't even start to do these paintings justice.

©2017 Merrill Mahaffey

What fascinated me was how Mahaffey was able to paint rock and stone so adeptly and depict them so compellingly that the temptation to reach out and touch the paintings is darned near overwhelming. It may be hard to imagine being transfixed by a painting of rocks, but that was the effect works like "Silver Plume Granite" had on me. I could only stand there staring at its colors and shapes and the exquisite play of light and shadow along its planes and cracks. This is what great art does: it draws you in and allows you to see and experience something in an entirely new way.


But closeup views of rocks are just part of this collection. Works like "Los Alamos Cliffs," "Cliff Faces," "Glen Canyon Dam" and "Cerillos Sky" depict the grandeur and vast scale of a landscape totally unlike what we have here in the Southeast. Mahaffey's paintings transport the viewer to places most of us will never see in person, namely because he's been an avid outdoorsman since he was a child, ferreting out backcountry locations miles off the beaten path. Now nearing 80, Merrill Mahaffey remains an icon and an inspiration for would-be landscape painters.

If you make the effort to see this exhibit before it comes down tonight, you will not be disappointed. It's an amazing experience. It would be a shame if you missed it.

Text  ©2017 Lynn Edwards


Saturday, February 11, 2017

A Thought for Sunday, February 12, 2017

"Genius is childhood recalled at will." -- Charles Baudelaire

Sunday, February 5, 2017

A Thought for Sunday, February 5, 2017

“Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.”-- Marc Chagall

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Using Glazing Medium to Achieve Perfect Color Blends and Soft Edges with Acrylics

Blending edges and colors when using acrylics can be a challenge, particularly when the humidity is low and warm temperatures prevail. Acrylic paint seems to dry faster than the speed of light under these conditions, causing many a beginning painter to hurl their canvas against a wall in frustration. This is especially true when using fluid acrylics, which dry more rapidly than the heavy body and soft body types. Acrylics' tendency to dry in the blink of an eye can make painting with them outdoors a true exercise in crazy-making.

A number of remedies for slowing drying time exist, including adding retarder, open medium, and soft gel. While all of these can indeed buy you more working time, I've become especially fond of using acrylic glazing medium for this purpose. A drop or so added to each puddle of paint makes it possible  to achieve beautifully soft color blends that stay workable long enough to apply the paint, move it around, step back to assess progress and add more paint -- without needing to work at warp speed. True to it's name, it's also the base product for creating beautifully rich color glazes.

Glazing liquid comes in different sheens. My favorites are the gloss and semi-gloss, both of which lend themselves well to the type of work I do. The only "drawback" to using glazing medium is that paints mixed with it must be allowed sufficient time to dry, once applied, before you try to use a glaze or other technique over them. If you don't allow enough drying time, whatever you apply will simply pull up whatever is beneath it. To test, barely touch the surface as lightly as you can with a fingertip. If the surface feels sticky, go have a cup of coffee and come back to it later.

Using glazing medium forces you to slow down and savor the process of creation. It encourages a more Zen-like painting experience. (On a more mundane level, it grants you enough time to go put another load of clothes in the washer.) Either way, you'll find blending colors to be so much more fun. And irony of ironies, if you're the impatient type, you might even find yourself wishing your acrylics would dry just a little bit faster!

 ©2017 Lynn Edwards