29 Faces #28 and #29

And I thought I was so far ahead, but it's February 27.....

But here are the last two, both drawn upside-down.

29 Faces #25, #26 and #27

The fifth little acrylic painting.  I'm excited to do more. 

Another mono-print session, more fun with fibers.  I'm still a little frustrated with this medium.  It's hard to wipe right. 

29 Faces #22, #23, and #24

So...I guess I'm trying to learn painting now.  These are really really small (4 X 6 inches).

29 Faces in February #19, #20, and #21

It's a post of miscellany.  I got back into the print studio yesterday, so here are two monoporints.  This first one, I unravelled some twine fiber, and I really like the texture in makes. 

This second one is spritzed with a little mineral spirits, though I think a little finer spritzing would have been better. 

And this third one is the first painting (as in all painting and not just part of some mixed media thing) that I've done in over 30 years.  Acrylic, even.  It's small, 4 X 6 inches, and now that I'm looking at it again, I see that the eyes are too close together, and there's some dark parts that are too dark, but for the first time in almost forever....I'm not unhappy.

29 Faces in February #17 and #18

The problem with doing drawings that you really really like is that you know the next one is going to be awful, or at least nowhere up to the one you really like.  But you have to do them anyway, because otherwise you're not going to get to others that you really like.  So here are the next two, which are okay, but nothing special.  Oh well.

Song 5

29 Faces in February #15 and #16

The latest two of my daily meditation upside-down drawings.  If you haven't before, you really ought to try it.....

Today's monoprint experiments

29 Faces in February #13 and #14

These upside-down drawings are turning into my morning meditation.  The moment you turn the reference photo upside-down, it becomes completely unrecognizable.  Your brain says "this does not compute," and then you choose a starting place (this time it was the hand), and you deal entirely with lines and shapes, which is really what you do when you draw anything anyway, but these ones are divorced from what your mind "knows".  It is an exercise in meditation, and then, such a treat when you turn it over and amazing--there's this recognizable person.

29 Faces in February #11 and #12

Two more faces drawn upside down.....

29 Faces in February, #10

Okay, so I'm not going to be able to do the whole thing in monoprints, not because I don't want to, but because I have to go to the Arts Center to use the press, and that's not something I can do every day.

So instead, I'm borrowing an idea from Terry Sargent Peart http://terrypeart.blogspot.com/search/label/29%20Faces%20Feb%202014 who is doing a drawing each day from the newspaper, and from Rick Baker, who did a fabulous fabulous series of upside-down drawings -- see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silav/sets/72157626005133599/with/7441475532/
and my thought is to do an upside-down drawing each day from the newspaper here.  It seems like it's a really good exercise.

Here's the first one, from today's paper, about someone challenging the Mormon Church to offer proof of....oh, I don't know what; I didn't read the article; I just liked the picture.

29 Faces in September #5 - 9

Monoprints, round two:  This time I added some sprinkles of mineral spirits to a couple of them.  What a cool effect!

Song 3

Sorry for posting so much, but we're having a snow day, so I have lots of time to work on stuff.

Another thing you have to make a decision about is what your marks mean.  I'm much much happier with this one, because, unlike the first two, I was clear on that.

Song 1 and 2

Here's a study in what doesn't work.  Though there are some beautiful things about these two pieces, they're not really working, and I finally put my finger on why: it's because I am undecided about some very basic questions.  Is it painterly or linear?  Undecided.  It is realistic or decorative?  Undecided.  Is it flat or does it have depth? Undecided.  So no matter what I did to try to unify the different parts and different techniques, they're schizophrenic.

I have this idea in my head, and these are trying to get at that.  I just need to make some decisions.  I have way too many inspirations at the moment, and there's so many things I want to try, but I can't do them all at once.

So I'm going to keep working on these (not these particular pieces, which I have declared done, as unsatisfactory as they are, but this idea).

29 Faces in February

Whoa!  It's that time again.  This will be my third time, and I will again choose a medium that I've never really used before.  The first one was gouache resist and ink; the second was linocut; this one will be monoprints.

Here is part of the first batch.   I made six.  These first two are the last two I made, and the ones that I like the best, just as they are.  They definitely take practice.

These next two are the first two, which I have "tweaked" with some pen and ink, which I also plan on doing with the other two.  

As frustrating as it is to work with ink on a plexiglass plate, I'm really liking the immediate results.  The black (which is relief printing ink) is SO rich, and there's such an opportunity for easy complexity (easy, as opposed to, say, pen and ink, which requires much hatching).

Other ridiculous things that don't really work

I have some ideas in my head--but how to execute them?  This is definitely NOT the way, but then, you can't ever know until you try something out.

Although I love some things about colored tissue paper, I think ultimately it's too frustrating to work with.

This one I like a little better, because of all the "stuff" that's going on, but this whole out-the-mouth idea is dumb.  I think I'd like this one more if I just made it plain black immediately around her head, including her mouth.

This is what--or at least one what

I'm not really happy with these, but here's one idea of what to do with those lovely washes.....