Beach Girl

The second painting done at the workshop on Hilton Head Island.
A wonderful, sunny day, but rather windy with strong waves. Just like us, this girl enjoyed a walk on the beach.

Beach Girl

Oil, 8'' x 8''

Atlanta Airport

On my way home to Switzerland. Two quick sketches done with the App 'Paper' on the iPad. Love those gadgets...

 

 

 

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Hilton Head Island again

I haven't posted in a while, and part of the reason for that is that I've been traveling again. In fact, I'll only fly home tomorrow.

I was lucky to spend two weeks in the US (South and North Carolina and Georgia) and to meet up with friends and to attend another workshop with Karin Jurick. It was fantastic!

Just to give you an impression, here's the first painting I did - after watching Karin do a demo from the same reference picture.

"Sea Watch"

Oils, 8'' x 8''

More to come....

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Miša

Beginning of the week I posted the portrait of Emilka, and as promised here's her brother Miša.

Miša is a bright, happy, sweet young boy who's interested in everything he sees and seems to take in the world around him eagerly. Upon having seen some Swiss flags while driving to our place in the car he very correctly explained to me how the white cross on the red ground needs to be just the right size, and should not touch the edge of the flag. Quite in contrast to the St. Georges's cross of the English flag he was proudly wearing on his shirt.

Like his sister Emilka, Miša is one of those kids that make you look forward to see the adults they will grow up to be.

 Miša

Oil, 12'' x 12''

Emilka

A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of getting to know this young lady, her brother and her parents.

Emilka is an absolute sweetheart, but also very clever, curious and interested in the world. With her five - and a half ! - years, she is ready to take on the world with a big smile and her sunny disposition, and I'm sure her family will be there every step of the way to support her.

Although I only just met Emilka and her family, I just had to try and capture her and her brother on canvas.
This is Emilka, I'll post the portrait of Miša soon.

 Emilka

Oil, 12'' x 12''

FeO - brand new and already rusty!

Sorry about the title, I couldn't resist!

This is one of the pieces I did at the workshop a week ago. It's acrylic on canvas, with sand, some collage and of course - the secret ingredient - rust!

"FeO"

Acrylic / Mixed Media on canvas, 32"x40"

Like you might have seen in the pictures from the last post, I started out by covering the canvas with a mixture of sand, marmor flour (?) and acrylic binder (resulting in a home-made modelling past) and played with the sand on canvas until I liked the structure and patterns it created.

Once this first ground layer was dry, I poured a fair amount of watered-down black acrylic on the canvas, moving the canvas, adding water where needed (by spraying or pouring from a water bottle). Again it needed to dry. I might then have added a second layer of black (can't remember) and then the next layer, this dark-beige-brownish color you can see on the right half of the canvas as well as the top left corner. Next layer: orange!

So far so good, but then it got to be really fun:

To the top right corner I added (glued in) a piece of stringy, net-like fabric / paper. Something you might use for wrapping up a nice flower or a present.
Then I made a paste out of iron powder and again acrylic binder and gently brushed this onto the fabric in order for it to add to the to 3D quality of the collage, covering only the elevated parts of the fabric.
So the white you can see above is the dried binder, the grey is the dried iron past.

BUT -  I didn't want iron but was looking for rust. So the iron part got then brushed on with an oxidation agent in order for the iron to start to rust. It only took about one to two hours for the grey paste to turn into...

... the rich sienna-like orange rust you can see above. I also added some rust to the lower left part of the painting and added some smaler fields of color, scribbles and splashes of colors and white.
And as a final touch I used some colored modelling paste and a stencil to add the lettering you can see.

Voilà!

Workshop Impressions

I'm spending one week at the beautiful Lake Constance (German part) to attend a workshop with Gerhard Almbauer. He's a great artist an teacher and we're doing large-size acrylic abstract paintings. I've taken a class with him before, this week now is titled "Earth - Sand - Rust". Doesn't that sound interesting?

Just a few snapshots, I'll post more work in progress pictures and information once I'm back home.