Because you demanded it.... Mixed Media stuff Galore!
Frank Patriot, cody Megan Rose and Casey Crow (among others) mentioned what I use in various paintings. Yeah, Prismacolor watercolor pencils are a nice easy way to throw down color and blend with water..
I guess the reason i never bothered to get into this stuff, is there are only so many tools out there, aren't there? I mean, after Watercolor (some say difficult, but my personal favorite), Acrylic, Oils (which i tend to void as the always me a headache), what else.. Gouache? Markers, Pastel, Charcoal, Ink, Glazes..
I mean, the list is endless..
In some ways I think i tend to downplay what tools i use, because it strikes me we all use the same crap, more or less. To me, it's less *what* tools they use, and more *how* they use them.
I age old question we all ask".. how to you get it to look that way?" It's a great question, and one i have no really good answer for.
However, here's a few things i've monkeyed around with...
Powered Graphite & Alcohol:
Here's the old Powered Graphite mixed with Denatured Alcohol trick. Sometimes it's called Wood Alcohol, you may have to get it at a hardware store. It's not the drinking kind either. : )
Something about how the Alcohol and Graphite resist each other looks like oil and water sometimes.
I'll sometimes add water or india Ink too. All tend to pool up, eddy and resist each other. Here's one treated with a blue watercolor wash afterwards.
Do it outside though, because the Alcohol can really stinks up a studio.
---
Oxidising chemicals like Sodium Sulphide, or Asphaltum on Dutch Metal for example, can cause a cool eroded effect. Cupric Nitrate on a copper surface, looks like every other sepia Dave Mckean background painting.
Bad news is, most of these hard core Oxidized chemicals are Dangerous: They can BURN skin, and are NOT to be inhaled - - so be careful. I stopped using them because of the fume inducing stuff gives me headaches.
So instead, above, I've had safer luck with creating similar effects which sorta looks like eroding surfaces... the craggily texture is detergent mixed with powered graphite and Detergent, then acrylic and pastel over that.
Here's something I've fooled around with... using spray fixative or various types of glue, then watercolor (or other paints) over the surface,
You can lay down the watercolor either before, during or after drying. In the above pics, check out how the yellow watercolor 'recoils' or dries away from the art board, which was sprayed fixative first.
Above is a combo of some cork board i found at a thrift, plus Gel medium and various Acrylics.
Gel mediums, like pumice are cool to 'build' up a surface. They have various thicknesses, rough, smooth, or sand mixed into them for a grainy effect..
Above is some Dr. Martin watercolor dies over some 'still wet' acrylic paint... notice it tends to eat into the paint in an interesting way. The rough texture in the yellow-green area is made with tissue paper crumpled in paint, then lightly dragged over the surface. Also some 'torn canvas' in there too.
Here's an old standard any watercolor freaks know, the old 'salt dropped into wet on wet watercolor' trick.. I must have used this a million times on covers and backgrounds in comics and paintings.
Most Art stores sell tons of different textured paper. I pasted one onto my sketchbook, then tried to blend these into Acrylic Gel medium too... The lines from a whit out pen ...sorta sticks out and seem crude to me here, so I may smooth them out a little with Acrylic white paint...
Below is a wet brown gouache paint, pressed onto a piece of brown paper with cheesecloth.
Here's an old trick too, working ocher or orange watercolor dyes into a yellow color inside the flower shape. You can work the darker watercolor dies from dark to light by, adding water to dilute it... (duh!) ..
Remember watercolor dies like Dr. Martins (as opposed to tube watercolors) tend to fade, but you can work that in your favor.. here's an example below. A painting I posted a few weeks back.
Notice how the middle of a teal 'squiggly line' of watercolor seems to 'fade' in the middle? That's what I mean by using fading to advantage. Watercolor esp. fades when used over acrylic. Once you make a line, you can go back in and beef up the saturated color on either end of the line.. giving a luminous 'dark to light to dark' effect. As if light is shinning through.
I get asked about the texture on the lower right in the one above, it's a Kleenex dipped in half acrylic paint and half water. You can drag or twirl the tissue however you want, then it dries hard onto the surface in that shape you want.
The stringy stuff above is Household 'Goop' glue. Yup, that's a pasted in piece of hardware in there.
Anything lying around the house is in danger of being used... like...
wood.. or...
Leather, springs, bolts.. anything you like.
Sometimes it's as simple ( or crude ) as ripping a surface, defacing it with smears or using sandpaper or a metal rasp to do some real damage.
Here's an (not entirely successful) experiment some paint and dirt blended in with wood.
Now you may say to yourself on a lot of these what many people say about post modern art " Hell, i can do that sam!" and you'd be totally right. I see no line between amateur and professional anymore, just 20 century blur of everyone creating what they want, using whatever inspires them. Beyond good or bad, crap or quality.
I don't think any of us who draw or creates really understand how we do it, at least not consciously. In a way i don't even WANNA necessarily analyze it too much. I don't want my 'right brian' .. busting up the party, so to speak.
Or that may just be me. I don't really have anything to 'teach', as i'm self taught (and suffer for it). All i can do is share crap that i've tried that works, and other stuff that fails.
For me, stuff I draw that fail miserably... is often greatest chance... greatest 'gift'. Someone once asked Paul Simon why his Graceland album was so good, and he replied the last three albums which didn't work before, it were the reason why. I used to be so ashamed of all my mistakes and floundering. Then i realized most everyone else can see what works and what does. there's no secrets. Now, I try befriend a bad face and a poor drawing, because it's something we all know the truth of.
There's nothing like totally screwing up a perfectly good painting, but coming away with the benefit of some fresh thoughts/ideas you never had before. Or bust up possibly bullshit artistic preconceptions you previously held.
But i agree... if i don't at least TRY trying new tools and technics, I'm bound to get bore and endlessly repeat myself.
And lastly, if you look closely, you can make out the layers of black acrylic paint piled onto the sketchbook i do my chicken pages in. That's why I do chickens, owning and repossessing my flaws
Frank Patriot, cody Megan Rose and Casey Crow (among others) mentioned what I use in various paintings. Yeah, Prismacolor watercolor pencils are a nice easy way to throw down color and blend with water..
I guess the reason i never bothered to get into this stuff, is there are only so many tools out there, aren't there? I mean, after Watercolor (some say difficult, but my personal favorite), Acrylic, Oils (which i tend to void as the always me a headache), what else.. Gouache? Markers, Pastel, Charcoal, Ink, Glazes..
I mean, the list is endless..
In some ways I think i tend to downplay what tools i use, because it strikes me we all use the same crap, more or less. To me, it's less *what* tools they use, and more *how* they use them.
I age old question we all ask".. how to you get it to look that way?" It's a great question, and one i have no really good answer for.
However, here's a few things i've monkeyed around with...
Powered Graphite & Alcohol:
Here's the old Powered Graphite mixed with Denatured Alcohol trick. Sometimes it's called Wood Alcohol, you may have to get it at a hardware store. It's not the drinking kind either. : )
Something about how the Alcohol and Graphite resist each other looks like oil and water sometimes.
I'll sometimes add water or india Ink too. All tend to pool up, eddy and resist each other. Here's one treated with a blue watercolor wash afterwards.
Do it outside though, because the Alcohol can really stinks up a studio.
---
Oxidising chemicals like Sodium Sulphide, or Asphaltum on Dutch Metal for example, can cause a cool eroded effect. Cupric Nitrate on a copper surface, looks like every other sepia Dave Mckean background painting.
Bad news is, most of these hard core Oxidized chemicals are Dangerous: They can BURN skin, and are NOT to be inhaled - - so be careful. I stopped using them because of the fume inducing stuff gives me headaches.
So instead, above, I've had safer luck with creating similar effects which sorta looks like eroding surfaces... the craggily texture is detergent mixed with powered graphite and Detergent, then acrylic and pastel over that.
Here's something I've fooled around with... using spray fixative or various types of glue, then watercolor (or other paints) over the surface,
You can lay down the watercolor either before, during or after drying. In the above pics, check out how the yellow watercolor 'recoils' or dries away from the art board, which was sprayed fixative first.
Above is a combo of some cork board i found at a thrift, plus Gel medium and various Acrylics.
Gel mediums, like pumice are cool to 'build' up a surface. They have various thicknesses, rough, smooth, or sand mixed into them for a grainy effect..
Above is some Dr. Martin watercolor dies over some 'still wet' acrylic paint... notice it tends to eat into the paint in an interesting way. The rough texture in the yellow-green area is made with tissue paper crumpled in paint, then lightly dragged over the surface. Also some 'torn canvas' in there too.
Here's an old standard any watercolor freaks know, the old 'salt dropped into wet on wet watercolor' trick.. I must have used this a million times on covers and backgrounds in comics and paintings.
Most Art stores sell tons of different textured paper. I pasted one onto my sketchbook, then tried to blend these into Acrylic Gel medium too... The lines from a whit out pen ...sorta sticks out and seem crude to me here, so I may smooth them out a little with Acrylic white paint...
Here's an old trick too, working ocher or orange watercolor dyes into a yellow color inside the flower shape. You can work the darker watercolor dies from dark to light by, adding water to dilute it... (duh!) ..
Remember watercolor dies like Dr. Martins (as opposed to tube watercolors) tend to fade, but you can work that in your favor.. here's an example below. A painting I posted a few weeks back.
Notice how the middle of a teal 'squiggly line' of watercolor seems to 'fade' in the middle? That's what I mean by using fading to advantage. Watercolor esp. fades when used over acrylic. Once you make a line, you can go back in and beef up the saturated color on either end of the line.. giving a luminous 'dark to light to dark' effect. As if light is shinning through.
I get asked about the texture on the lower right in the one above, it's a Kleenex dipped in half acrylic paint and half water. You can drag or twirl the tissue however you want, then it dries hard onto the surface in that shape you want.
The stringy stuff above is Household 'Goop' glue. Yup, that's a pasted in piece of hardware in there.
Anything lying around the house is in danger of being used... like...
Sometimes it's as simple ( or crude ) as ripping a surface, defacing it with smears or using sandpaper or a metal rasp to do some real damage.
Here's an (not entirely successful) experiment some paint and dirt blended in with wood.
Now you may say to yourself on a lot of these what many people say about post modern art " Hell, i can do that sam!" and you'd be totally right. I see no line between amateur and professional anymore, just 20 century blur of everyone creating what they want, using whatever inspires them. Beyond good or bad, crap or quality.
I don't think any of us who draw or creates really understand how we do it, at least not consciously. In a way i don't even WANNA necessarily analyze it too much. I don't want my 'right brian' .. busting up the party, so to speak.
Or that may just be me. I don't really have anything to 'teach', as i'm self taught (and suffer for it). All i can do is share crap that i've tried that works, and other stuff that fails.
For me, stuff I draw that fail miserably... is often greatest chance... greatest 'gift'. Someone once asked Paul Simon why his Graceland album was so good, and he replied the last three albums which didn't work before, it were the reason why. I used to be so ashamed of all my mistakes and floundering. Then i realized most everyone else can see what works and what does. there's no secrets. Now, I try befriend a bad face and a poor drawing, because it's something we all know the truth of.
There's nothing like totally screwing up a perfectly good painting, but coming away with the benefit of some fresh thoughts/ideas you never had before. Or bust up possibly bullshit artistic preconceptions you previously held.
But i agree... if i don't at least TRY trying new tools and technics, I'm bound to get bore and endlessly repeat myself.
And lastly, if you look closely, you can make out the layers of black acrylic paint piled onto the sketchbook i do my chicken pages in. That's why I do chickens, owning and repossessing my flaws
