Tag Archives: mixed media

Start To Finish?

Winter Bouquet. 6 x 6 mixed media on paper. © 2018 Sheila Delgado

We had rain for most of last night. I worked quickly while listening to soft rain drops and an occasional boom of thunder. Another start from weeks ago.

WIP. 6 x 6 acrylic on paper. 2017 Sheila Delgado

I had no clue what to do next, where to take it. I just wanted to paint. Grab a brush and get in the zone.

Two lines became a vase. And where there is a vase, well, you get the idea. The first layers were acrylics. I added Neocolor and more acrylic.

After I scanned the image, I felt it was top-heavy. So I made some changes in Photoshop. I added some of the background around the blooms. I tried several times, in different areas. But I wasn’t thrilled with this either.

WIP, Winter Bouquet. 6 x 6 mixed media on paper. © 2018 Sheila Delgado

NOW, I can see that I have rows of blooms. is that what I don’t like? Next step, I think I am going to go back in, and make larger blooms. Fewer, blooms.

Stay tuned.

More late Christmas/Birthday loot. Our Christmas celebration was this past weekend. These were from my brother and his wife. The book covers five different mediums, with beginning to advanced techniques. I had a hard time putting it down! Just looked on Amazon, and there is a companion book for painting as well.

As we were in Phoenix, I had the chance to visit Jerry’s Artarama. If you are on their email list, they offer a free gift for your birthday. Thought it would be colored pencils, or markers. Turned out to be a 4 x 6 hardbound sketch book. How cool is that! I also picked up a few more Neocolors, a bottle of alcohol ink, watercolor paint, Three 6 x 6 Da-Vinci coarse textured panels, and 10 4 x 4 mixed media panels. Yay for seasonal sales!

Color me excited!

More WIP

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Simple start in progress. 4 x 4 mixed media on arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2017 Sheila Delgado

Think I might have botched it. Debated about adding a soft wash to the petals. But I think it will just get messy. Used Inktense watercolor pencils this round. Made additions to the other two starts, will share soon.

Do you remember my spider snafus from about a month ago? They have started again. (Links for the curious. No photos here, because I don’t want to see them in my media gallery every time I write a post.) I had just stopped checking my bed each night. And Bam. No, not in the bed. Under it. I spotted it on the floor mat by my chair. A huge dark spot. A wolf spider. Turned to get a shoe to kill it with, looked again, and it was gone. Matches the carpet perfectly. Camo Turbo Spider. Spent 30 minutes literally tearing the bed apart. Needed help to lift the mattress and the box spring.

There it was. So I am standing there, holding the box spring, stretching a foot to mash it. Because it just ain’t over until there are spider guts on your shoe. It was slower by this time. It had popped out from under the bed at one point, and I spritzed it with hair spray. You can laugh, but it works. Slows them so they are easier to catch.

Wolf spiders vary in size from small species with only ½ inch leg spans to large ones whose legs may stretch out 5 inches. This one was at least two inches long. That was two days ago, and since then, there has been a spider by my window, and desk and art supplies. A cricket on my closet door, and a spider in the bath next to my room. Enough!

There are 200 types of wolf spider!!!! 40,000 in world, that we know of. Far too many if you ask me. I know, I know, they are beneficial. And I am just fine with them existing, as long as I don’t have to see them. Or worry about finding them in my bed.

I ventured outside today, to take some photos of the flower pots. Saw a HUMONGOUS grasshopper. Must have been five inches at least. I only about half of it. I was leaning in close to some pink flowers… and then backed away slowly.

I walked around the back of the house, and saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in person. No, take that back. I did meet up with a tarantula near Miramar once. This Garden Spider. was actually almost attractive. Follow the link and you will see how colorful and dramatic it is. It was a female. Females can lay more than one egg sac, sometimes three or four. Each sac can contain almost 1,000 yellowish eggs. Spiders “hatch” from their eggs mid-winter but do not emerge from the safety of the egg sac until the following spring. Three or four thousand could be hatching??!!!!

Yuck!

OK, one more gross bug story. A few months after we moved in, friends came to visit. As they were leaving one day, I opened the front door and this fell on the door jamb. Right in front of me. I was looking at my friends, so I heard it first. A very solid thud. That thing was quick! It made it about six feet into the house before Mark carefully kicked it out the door.

Maybe that is why they call it the wild west.

Day 20 Of 30

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Day 20, Dusk. 4.25 x 8 in. mixed media on Arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2017 Sheila Delgado

Long day. Productive, thank goodness. So busy painting away, I couldn’t even remember yesterday’s post. Going a little 30 in 30 loony. Anyone else?

This is acrylics, Caran d’Ache Neocolor Crayons, and watercolor pencils. I started by making marks, then painted over them. Like a lasagna, I repeated those layers three or four times. Using a palette knife, I spread the paint, and sometimes scratched into it. The light layer you see, took a few spritz of water, before I continued to scrape most of that layer off.

I went over some of the linear marks, and used a wet brush to activate the color. I left some of the previous marks untouched, just hints under the layer of scraped paint. I added more venetian red in areas, and used water to move the color there as well.

I had no idea what to do at that point. Turned the paper and looked at it from each angle. Decided to take a piece of crumpled plastic wrap and use it like a sponge to apply paint. I have sponges, but the wrap had already been used and was next to me on the desk. I applied several tints of the same color.

Maybe this could use something more, but I like it.