Sunday, September 7, 2014

Three tan streets

I recently discovered a lovely café au lait colored Stonehenge paper in an 11"x14" pad. It's darker than the tan tiles from Zentangle, and I looked forward to doing some larger work on brown. I also had a small piece of printing styrofoam that I've had for years thinking "I must use this sometime!" but never have, until now.

I divided one sheet of paper into equal thirds. I drew some quick house-y shapes on the styrofoam. I used thinned, brown acrylic paint as my printing medium and printed the same styrofoam plate each time on the three papers. Here's the styrofoam after being used.
I was interested to see how different the three drawings would be, once completed, all beginning with the same basic print. Sort of like a zentangle class where everyone starts with the same string and the same tangles but after that individuality reigns! Here are the three monoprints I started with:

Nope. They don't look like much do they? But, take some time to tangle, and...

Here's the first one, completed.
THE CLIMBING TREE
(c)2014 Margaret Bremner
Here's the second one, completed.
LUSH
(c)2014 Margaret Bremner
Here's the third one, completed. I was a little surprised by the stripes that began appearing, but decided to let them happen.
ROWHOUSES
(c)2014 Margaret Bremner
I quite like this paper but I did find it rather dark. A white pen looked too stark and it required quite some effort to lighten areas sufficiently. But I have the rest of the pad, and other ideas!

15 comments:

  1. These are stunning. You are a true artist. I love the way I can scroll between the original paint prints and see details that have become structures in the later detailed work - like the tree trunk in the first one. Awesome colouring, shading, detail! Divine!

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  2. Wow, wow, and wow!!! Love each one of them!

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  3. Gorgeous Margaret - what a great body of work here. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Very strange how my first comment just vanished after I clicked on "publish". Anyhoo, just wanted to share with you that your houses make me smile and that you brighten my day. I LOVE your houses and your trees! Thanks for letting us observe and admire.

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  5. Thank you, Pinterest, for bringing me to this outstanding blog. Beautiful and inspiring work!

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  6. Awesome, what a great idea, and how beautiful are the pieces after you have tickled them with a pen.
    Love all your houses, and sure got some inspiration, to try houses myself.

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  7. I find it hard sometimes to tangle over acrylic paint. What pens did you use for these, Margaret? Are they microns or something else?

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    1. The acrylic paint is just a wash, not thick. It seems to soak into the paper enough that I don't have any issues. I'm about to try out paint pens which draw on thicker paint and will allow me to try some larger pieces.

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    2. I have been having major issues with permanent black markers when drawing/writing over acrylic paint in my mixed media work, and after searching online for an answer to the problem of the pens (even brand new ones) clogging and ceasing to work almost straight away, was told that Faber Castel Artist Pitt Pens would not clog - but I'm afraid they do. I have never heard of paint pens, and wonder if they would be the answer to this problem? What brand would you recommend? I do a lot of fine outlining and embellishment on acrylic backgrounds and would certainly need black, white (good and opaque) and sepia to start with, in various thicknesses. Any advice would be very much appreciated!

      Shoshi

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    3. I have some Sharpie "water-based paint" pens in black and white, which I'm happy with thus far. (I haven't done a lot with them yet.) I also have some Golden high-flow acrylic paints and the accompaning pens to use it with, but haven't yet.

      Also, have you tried Permapaque pens from Sakura? They might work.

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  8. The last one (Rowhouses) looks almost Cubist in that you have transparent planes which impose themselves onto different houses. Love it!

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  9. they are wonderful, You have inspired me to get to work.

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  10. Stunning, stunning... and did I say "Stunning"? I absolutely LOVE this - it's a real combination of Zentangle with mixed media and the direction I am finding myself going in these days. I am going through a brown phase at the moment (probably heavily influenced by my experiments with teabags!) and this is really getting my creative juices flowing!

    Thanks for sharing a really GREAT idea.

    Shoshi

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