CrashOctopus Blog

Remember when I swore off oil paint? I do. But all my resolve withers at the slightest glance from the muse, so I went crawling back. Plus, I paid for those tubes and they’re just sitting there…

Anyway, I’ve recently been doing some small oils and gouaches, going back and forth. This has helped me appreciate the oils a little more. Gouache still wins hands-down in a head-to-head matchup - it took me a week to do a 6×6″ oil because I had to keep waiting for it to dry (whine! want to paint NOW!) - but there is one thing about it that can’t compare to oil: blending brushstrokes.

They say gouache is great for coloring illustrations because of the smooth, flawless areas of color it can create. I have never been able to achieve such smoothness - I end up with brushstrokes showing everywhere. I’m convinced that it requires 1) very smooth supports and 2) perfect paint consistency. I possess #1, but #2 requires more skill than I currently have. Plus, the stuff dries so fast that the perfect-consistency-paint you mixed an hour ago is now tacky or totally dry. Excuses, excuses, I know… but either way, I haven’t been able to get that smooth finish that gouache is known for. With oils, I can get it every time, effortlessly. Meh.

So, what’s a girl to do? I have completely given up trying to make smooth areas of color, especially on textured supports. Instead, I use the brushstrokes as textures. It doesn’t always work well, but I’m still learning. If you need a large area of color, try doing lots of small directional brushstrokes, or cross-hatching. From afar, it looks smooth and consistent. Close-up, it gives another dimension to the painting, potentially making it more interesting. Some examples:

Gouache on Gessobord:

Gouache on cold press watercolor paper:

Our local Beverage Resort recently got a bunch of new beers from Dogfish Head Brewery. We tried two; only one could qualify as a dark beer. They have a bunch, though, and with cool names like Lawnmower Light, plus their rockin’ shark logo, I’d suggest giving the others a try (if you don’t mind light beer).

Dogfish Head Raison d’Etre was tasty. According to the almighty Wikipedia, its name translates to “the reason for existence.” This seems a bit presumptuous, but it matches their website’s attitude, which also recommends drinking this beer from a goblet or snifter. Since Nathan and I are more walk-around-barefoot-outside people than OMG-my-goblets-don’t-match-my-china-pattern people, we just drank it straight from the bottle.

Anyhow, although this beer is technically ale, it’s really sweet and dark. It’s slightly sugary and reminiscent of raisins, which might be what’s on the label, although I think they look like coffee beans. Not a remarkable dark beer, but pleasant, and I’d recommend it.

Ratings

M: 8.5

N: 8

Cardinal by Meg Lyman

5×7″ Pastel

e-mail to buy

I spent a fairly long time working on this cardinal. It was my first time using pastels on Pastelbord, and I liked it. I overworked it a bit, but at least I’m starting to get the hang of pastels, and when to use the cheapies vs. the Senneliers. I was pretty happy with the piece.

Then I tried to be adventurous. I have fixative spray for Claybord. I know they make fixative specifically for pastels, but this fixative was specifically for Claybord. I thought, what the hell, might as well try it. …… BAD idea. I really hope I can help someone avoid learning this lesson the hard way. Oh well… I’d never learn anything if I didn’t take chances.

This is what it looked like before.

I’ve always loved drawing and creating and plumbing the depths of my imagination. As artists, haven’t we all? But until the day I started painting, I didn’t realize the extent of the influence my favorite artists have on my muse. Some of them have indelibly stamped themselves into my brain. I think many of us have a few artists that really dig at us. In my case, those artists not only inspire me, but seeing what they could do made me plunge from the world of greyscale into the extra dimension of color. That fateful day was less than a year ago, but since then, I have learned far more about myself as an artist (and about my muses and influences) than I did in all the preceding years of drawing.

In the upcoming weeks and months, I’ll highlight some of those artists who have been hammering at my brain, with hopes that you’ll find something in their work to help motivate and teach you. I love these artists passionately, have their works on my walls, and drag all my houseguests around showing them the amazing concepts and brushwork, their eye-rolling notwithstanding.

Today, I’ll introduce you to Will Bullas. One of my first loves, Will was introduced to me by the Wenaha Gallery in Dayton, WA, my dad’s hometown. We visit each year, and when I was fairly young, we found Will’s “Duck Tape” in the gallery.

Duck Tape, Will Bullas

Is that not hilarious? I think they only had that one work at the time. Now Will has books and figurines, too… and has expanded his hilarity to all corners of the globe. His clever use of puns, ingenious use of expressions, and delicate technique (especially with watercolors) have never ceased to make me giggle with delight. He also makes my grandmother giggle, which pushes his esteem even higher in my book.

Get a load of some of these titles: Between the Sheeps, Crabernet, Even My Hare Hurts, Peanut Putter, Polar Beer, Rump Roost, The Nutquacker, Wine-oceros… the list goes on! And he has a few “serious” works, which are just as high in quality, if not giggles.

The Bar Bill, Will Bullas

(I have this print on my wall - he personalized it and signed it!)

When I started painting, people who knew me well noted that my concepts reminded them of Will Bullas. His influence on me is tremendous, and I think that will always come through in my painting. I’m not sure whether holding “A Fool and His Bunny” as the highest standard is noble or just silly, but I refuse to have it any other way.

Who influences and inspires you?

Happy Earth Day! Today I chose a beer that has a tree in its name. See how earthy I am? I’ve also planted two trees this year. If you haven’t done so already, go plant a tree! My two new trees, “Fil” and “Bert,” are growing and boldly leafing out, making my air cleaner already.

Anyway, Dominion Oak Barrel Stout is this week’s beer. For a stout, it’s quite light. It is bubbly and bright, and not very smooth. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lot of taste or body. It’s a bit flighty - more like a finch in the tree than the oak itself (see, more earth metaphors!). Redeemingly, it smells a bit like coffee.

M: 7

N: 6

Legless Mouse

5×7″ Oil on Claybord Smooth

$50 - e-mail to buy

Here is an example of how to make oil or gouache work with Claybord Smooth. Go here to see an example of how to make a horrible streaky mess with oil on Claybord Smooth.

I painted the background weeks ago, and it is all streaky and ugly and brushstrokey. However, it dried to a nice textured finish, so painting over the top of it was sort of like painting on canvas. It works really well for oil, and pretty well for gouache.

Cool, huh?

Today I continue my thoughts on the various supports I’ve abused with gouache. See Part 1 for watercolor paper, bristol board, and illustration board. This time, we’ll look at Canson Pastel Paper and different types of Claybord. I have a few more supports I’ve tried, so there will be a Part 3 in the not-too-distant future.

Canson Pastel Paper is a sturdy paper, but it is paper, which means it’s flimsier than bristol, illo board, or watercolor paper. It looks wimpy, and I was a bit afraid to try it, thinking it would disintegrate if it got wet. But I was too tempted by its lovely tinted shades to be deterred. And it held the gouache fairly well. I didn’t layer or scrub very much, and I didn’t use the gouache thickly. I knew it’d crack off the paper if I did. So, with minimal abuse, Canson paper works very well. It curled up and warped a bit, but nothing matting can’t fix.

Work on Canson Paper

Ampersand Claybord comes in umpteen different varieties, each with a unique surface. They are all white clay on hardboard, and are archival, and I love them. No warping! Great absorption! I’ll go through each of the kinds I’ve used.

Gessobord and Textured are quite similar. Textured is designed to be more like watercolor paper, and is therefore bumpier, with excellent little nooks and crannies. Gessobord is nicely textured, but fairly smooth overall, with little variation. They both take gouache wonderfully. They absorb quickly, so if you use a wash, it’ll dry slightly faster on these boards than on paper. The downside is that you can’t scrub back to white. But that’s more a concern for watercolor than gouache.

Work on Gessobord

Work on Claybord Textured

Pastelbord is made for pastels, so the surface feels like fine-grain sandpaper. It’s deliciously fun to put gouache on that surface. I used a bristle brush, and went for the textured, visible-brushstroke look. Pastelbord is wonderful for that. I loved the feel of the bristles on the surface. You won’t be able to get nice, smooth areas of color on it, though.

Work on Pastelbord

Claybord Smooth is not for gouache. It’s the same with oil paint; you need to put down a few coats to build yourself a textured surface before you can really paint on it. It’s incredibly smooth, like plate or smooth bristol board, but it’s also slick, so it doesn’t absorb paint quickly. The result is that the gouache would rather stay on the brush than transfer to the surface, and you get awful streaks. I haven’t found the patience to figure out how to make gouache work well with Smooth.

Work on Claybord Smooth

Finally, there’s Claybord Black, my very first Ampersand board. It’s black india ink over a Claybord Smooth panel. It is meant for scratching - but I’ve seen some fine works at WetCanvas of scratchboard with color. Usually they use colored inks, but I thought I’d give gouache a try. It worked OK, but my scratching technique didn’t work well with the way the gouache completely covers the india ink. It’s tough to get it back to a nice, dark black after the gouache has been layered on top. Next time, I’ll try something with definite borders, to see if I can put the gouache in the scratched areas only.

Work on Claybord Black

And, before I forget, I got all my supplies at Dick Blick. Their online store has every type of Claybord product, in any size they make (the physical store has only a limited selection). So here’s my Dick Blick plug: if you want to try out any of these surfaces, consider going through Dick Blick:

To continue with beers that only come in huge bottles, this week I present Left Hand Smoke Jumper Porter. Left Hand is quickly becoming a favorite brewery, and not just because they have such a variety of dark beers - they all taste good.

Smoke Jumper Porter is labeled as “Smoked Imperial Porter,” and Nathan and I were both plagued by curiosity about smoked beer. Smoked?? The guy at the store told is it was made to benefit our country’s smoke jumpers - it’s called the “Official Beer of the National Smokejumper Association.” So, brand loyalty, curiosity, and a good cause had us opening our wallets. It was about $12 for the 750 ml, which is outrageously expensive. I’d probably buy it more often if it came in normal bottles, because getting two people to agree they want the same beer at the same time is a challenge.

Smoke Jumper tastes as if someone took a Left Hand BlackJack Porter and put it in a smoker for 8 hours. It smells like jerky and tastes like hickory barbecue. It has a small initial bite, then is smooth and has no aftertaste (except maybe the faint whiff of burning leaves). It has only a hint of sweet - most of the flavor is tangy and, well, smoky. A very interesting beer. I’ve never had one even remotely like this. If you have the curiosity and the cash, I’d recommend trying it.

M: 8.5

N: 9

Snail

Pastel on La Carte, 2.75 x 5.5

$45 - e-mail to buy

My lovely set of Sennelier half-pastel-sticks came with a tiny piece of the brand’s pastel card, La Carte. You know why they put it in there. They’re enabling new pastel junkies, that’s what they’re doing. It should be outlawed.

I tried the stuff to see what it’d be like. It’s far superior to plain old pastel paper. Now that I know what I’m missing, I want to go buy the expensive stuff. I might even sell my hypothetical firstborn for a set with all the colors. However, I have umpteen million sheets of Canson paper to use. Good thing it takes gouache without too much protest. I think I’ll be trying a lot of mediums on it before I use it all up…

I was going to blog about more gouache supports today, but I had an exciting development yesterday that is preventing me from thinking coherently for more that 12 seconds at a time.

I have been painting and otherwise working in color for almost a year now. I have ramped up production in the recent months, and I now have about 30 works in color. Not a lot, but enough to convince myself that I should visit a local gallery. I was nosing around the internet for local galleries and shows, and found a lot that sell “stuffy” art - you know the kind - traditional scenes, drab colors, perfect for an office hallway. I don’t have anything against stuffy art, but I love bright colors, and my art definitely wouldn’t fit into a gallery like that. And I could choose from a bunch of outdoor art shows, but I’m not prepared to make the investment in a tent, table, panels, and the vehicle to carry all that around. I was feeling a bit discouraged, having just found out I missed the Dragon*Con Art Show jury deadline… but then I came across the Blue Frog Gallery, right here in Marietta. Oh, the colors! I tried to e-mail them a link to my website portfolio, but the form wasn’t working… so I decided to go in person.

I matted a bunch of stuff, loaded up the car, and went. There was a one-artist show going on, and her brightly colored art was all over the walls. I sure didn’t want a show, since you could put all my colored art on a few 2×6′ panels. But I was looking for advice, and perhaps they’d take one or two of my pieces.

The gallery owner was fantastic and friendly, and liked my style. She does a lot more than showings - there are art classes and she’s starting a set of “fairs” - like outdoor art shows, but inside the gallery. She invited me to set up a table in the event at the end of this month. She really liked Bugsy, who I’d framed that morning with crappy results (framing pastels is hard!).

I’m so excited, and have a lot of prep work to do. I’m also a bit nervous, since I don’t really feel like I’ve found my style yet. In fact, I feel a looonnng way away from that. I’ve learned enough about color to know I know nothing. And yet, I might just sell something… we’ll see.

Today’s Lesson: you never know if you don’t try.

(squeeeeeeeeeeeee!)