Category: Studio Diary

  • Gel Prints on Denim

    Gel Prints on Denim

    I’m going through the Decisions Stage of my painting, so I didn’t some swatching and will do more tomorrow. The rest of my time was spent sorting my fabric stash, and doing a very basic inventory in my notes app. I have some ideas bubbling away, and so I wanted to reacquaint myself with what…

  • Background Layers

    Background Layers

    I was hoping to get a bit more of this done today, but it was one of those days when there were deliveries due, and I just don’t settle until they are dealt with. This was made more frustrating because the second delivery made it to right outside my house, and I stood and watched…

  • Charcoal and Texture

    Charcoal and Texture

    I don’t know why I don’t use charcoal more often, because I love using it. It’s especially yummy on my yummy textured piece. I’m using a selfie that I have used before as a reference for this one, and I am leaving it here for the day so I can walk in first thing and…

  • Linocut Pictish Beastie

    Linocut Pictish Beastie

    Two coats of gesso have unified the texture collage on the canvas, and I left it to dry overnight. I’m obsessed with the muslin texture, but I haven’t started painting on it, so I may change my mind soon enough. I dug out my linocut bits and pieces and reacquainted myself with not gouging pieces…

  • Texture Yumminess

    Texture Yumminess

    I started working on the canvas drill fabric I primed the other day. It’s around 12×16″, so larger than I have been working of late. I taped it to a board and plotted the basic layout in charcoal. The only reason I did this was to have a rough idea where the face is for…

  • Stashing the Pretty

    Stashing the Pretty

    Much of today was about tidying and sorting and organising. It turns out when you buy a kilo of fabric remnants and fancy trims you have to find somewhere to store it. That task turned into a total overhaul of two shelving units so that things were easier to find, less dusty (!) and like…

  • A Plan Comes Together-ish

    A Plan Comes Together-ish

    There was a lot of pottering about with various things today, and the most photogenic is this one. I have nailed the printing and transparency aspect of this idea, and now I have to get the fiddly, very thin, very wet, very much wanting to cling to itself thing to land where I want it…

  • Multiple Excitement

    Multiple Excitement

    I’m excited about multiple things today. The first thing to note is that I cut another strip off that bolt of cotton canvas fabric I’ve had in my art/craft/hoard stash since the nineties and primed it. The pieces I primed a while back are still waiting for paint, but they are smaller, and I’m going…

  • Planting Ideas and Things

    Planting Ideas and Things

    I had an unplanned stint in the garden today because a pot luck box of Sedum cuttings arrived a day early. I’m not complaining. The box was stuffed with way more plants than I was expecting, and I’m not complaining about that either. Some of them are so tiny, but they are easy to get…

  • Making a Transparency Using an Inkjet Print (cont.)

    Making a Transparency Using an Inkjet Print (cont.)

    I was thinking I had probably exhausted the options for this deep-dive, other than honing my skills with the application process, and I was thinking I was satisfied with my discoveries. Then I had an idea. I wasn’t even thinking about art, or this process, or anything at all to do with art, I was…

  • From Sketchbook To Gel Print Via Inkjet Printer

    From Sketchbook To Gel Print Via Inkjet Printer

    I had a little tidying and organising session today. I gathered together a bunch of things that I had stored in several different places and sorted them into groups of similar things. They are all things I have collected to use on the gel plates, but I never pull them out because they are in…

  • Image Transfer Transparencies Winners and Losers

    Image Transfer Transparencies Winners and Losers

    I have been testing an inkjet image of this drawing which was printed on copy paper the same day I made prints using all the different papers. The test is simply spraying a small section of the print with water, and seeing what happens. The first test was the day the print was made, and…