stop by and have a coffee

As well helping out as a real barista, i've been playing with a new web 2.0 toy thingo .. called digsby, not sure how to describe it but is sits on my computer and monitors my social network stuff (ok not flickr) but it has a neat little widget (its down on the right a bit) that gives me a little chat window ...so i've made it into a virtual cafe, where you can order coffee, or anything really, and have a chat (it know when i'm online and when I'm not) ... so stop by and say hello

some pencil work

soft pencil on paper

How sweet it is

I have been thinking about using honey as a paint medium ... yes it does make a really sticky transparenty mess by itself ... but then i read this, and tried adding some bricklayers oxide (used to colour mortar and cement) ... the honey takes up the oxide beautifully and it dilutes done to some a wonderfully natural colour ... the washes take a while to dry but that only makes it better to work with ...i think i am onto something wonderful here, but like so many of my discoveries the old master where onto to all this ages ago.

new palette

pastel over watercolour wash on paper
I've decided I needed to change my watercolour pallette, both the palette itself (the new one is a lot bigger) an the colours, with a cool and warm version of each of the primary colours. my aim is to get better washes under skin tones. whilst this sketch is finished with pastel the underpainting is watercolour washes in my primaries 9see the bar/test strip at the top of the sketch. indian, red, crimson and ultra marine all very dilute ... then some cad yellow in with the indian red as a slightly heavbier glaze

the radiant rose

pastel over watercolour wash on paper

loving the feel of pastels

i showed a couple of artist mates the open shirt ... and we quickly got in a deep technical discussion about using pure pigments over a wash ground ...and the importance of the pastel pigments, and their bindings ...ok i wont bore you ...what i discovered is already well known ... pure pigment pastels, and being australian, i use naturally art spectrum range, over a coloured ground is essentially mixing the colour on the art work itself .. it adds to the vibrancy ...mixing the same colours in paint on a palette first tends to muddy the colour, the more contributing colours in the mix, the more media used the duller the resulting colour. Using thin washes and glazes of one colour over another is another way to achieve this but no where near as rich as the pure pigment results



ok i'm not claiming to be einstien or anything ... its just nice to be able to understand why and how the colour works ... so here are a couple of videos I found on You Tube to verify that what I stumble onto is legit art, and already know by the real artists ...maybe its a my right of passage, or something similar, into secret artist business ... as Gauguin once said with the research comes the ecstacy and satisfaction of art

the open shirt

exploring the power of colour as tone, ...colour as passion and arousal ...the open shirt with its glimpse of the desirable must become art for arts sake