Sara Mathewson » Art Supplies

No new art

Sara — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:42:50 +0000

I decided I had better stop in to say “hi” to those who read this blog. I have probably lost most of my readers in the past few months with so few posts and no new art. I have been flaring again and unable to really do much. I do sit down and play with the watercolors and papers and my palette. I did order some new paints from Daniel Smith. I really love the paints from there. Some of my new paints are: Cobalt Teal Blue–love it!, Bronzite which is a cool bronze color. I’ve never had a metallic paint so this could be fun. I also got Quinacridone Pink. I already have Q. Rose and wanted this lighter version, very pretty and good for florals. I had to get their limited edition Opera pink. It is a fluorescent pink and I have seen other brands carry it, but this is the first time I have seen this color at Daniel Smith. I have seen it mentioned on some other watercolor blogs and also in magazines and just had to try it. I think it will make some great mixtures for oranges and violets. I haven’t tried it with my blues yet, but I did try it with Hansa yellow medium and New Gamboge and it does make a lovely orange with both of these colors. Very clear. I think it may need to be used sparingly as it is kind of fugitive from what I gather. I normally buy paints that are very light fast, but I couldn’t pass this one up. Kind of like using Alizarin Crimson. Although now that they have that in a more permanent form, I try to use that instead of the original. Not every painting is a masterpiece, but I still want them to hold up for a very long time. I did get DS’s Cobalt Violet too. I have this from another paint manufacturer and hated it, but the one from DS I love! It is very pale, but will make wonderful mixtures. The other brand would get this gross grease layer on top in the palette. I hated that. This is totally different. It just goes to show that the same colors from different paint companies can have totally different characteristics. So, if you don’t like a color from one manufacturer, you can always try it from another one. I bought a Cerulean Blue from DS and I have to say I am a bit disappointed in it. It is much darker than I thought it would be. I was really looking for that wonderful sky blue color that some Cerulean Blues are. I think that is the first one I have been disappointed with. I did get a new Primatek color from them, Amethyst Genuine. It is a fairly dark granulating violet. I have a few other Primatek colors from DS and really like them, especially Sleeping Beauty Turqouise and Amazonite. The Primatek colors are made from pigments from the earth. They are like the pigments that were used first in watercolors and other mediums. All from the earth and natural pigments. Some of them are very intense and some are very light but all of them are interesting and make wonderful mixtures. So I’ve been playing with these paints and rearranging my palette to include a few of them. I need a palette with more wells in it. I have looked at all the palettes that are out there and have debated and debated and I am thinking of getting Cheap Joe’s Piggyback palette with the extra palette. That way I can have the colors that I don’t use as often in the piggyback part and it has more wells than my current two palettes. It is a tough decision. I am starting to use bigger flat brushes, so I have looked at some with bigger wells, also. It boils down to needing more wells for my many colors. I think the wells will be large enough. I’m going to have to wait on that though as I just made a big order at Jerry’s Artarama. Chris’s daughter Kasie is now living with us and she has been wanting some art supplies. She wanted to try some water soluble oils so I ordered some of those for her and I ordered some canvasses. I have been wanting some oil pastels, so I broke down and bought two different kind. One of them is Sennelier and one I can’t remember, but I’m sure they will be harder than the Sennelier’s and will make good under-paintings. I bought two larger flat bristle brushes for watercolor washes. Oh, and I finally ordered some gesso that I have been needing for months. Suffice it to say I won’t be making an art order for some time, especially since I haven’t produced anything worth showing to anyone much less putting in a gallery.

Speaking of galleries, several people have been asking when I am going to come back to the Artist’s Co-op Gallery here in Arivaca. I was a member when we lived here before, but I got too sick to stay there. I really want to be back there as I have many friends there and it’s a social thing as well as a place to hang some of my work. They have wall space, so I decided it is time to re-apply.

My health is somewhat precarious at the moment. It seems that any little stress will send me into a flare. I am eating healthier and that is a very good thing. I think it will end up helping greatly. In particular we are eating lots of fermented foods. We have a source of raw goat’s milk and we have been making kefir (I drink about a quart of this a day) and Chris has been soaking our grains in active whey and then using them in bread and also sprouting the grains as well. We now have a grain mill and have been milling the grains going into the bread. It is all sourdough from a starter that we made from the natural yeast in the air here. All of these things aid in digestion and add more nutrients to the food. We have been using spelt flour, trying to avoid wheat, so in that way we are doing much better. We are also moving to a place on the other side of town that a friend of ours owns. It is ten acres of land and there is a labyrinth on it. We will live in the motorhome there and there is also a travel trailer that will have a bedroom for Kasie and a studio for me… yay! And the best thing is that we will be caretakers of the land, so we only have to pay electric! The land has great energy and we are very happy to do this. Life is good.

Namaste,

Sara

I Just Love Texture

Sara — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:16:12 +0000

The other day I started on a new piece. I was looking through some papers I have thinking that I may do a collage. I found a piece of white paper that has a fan like design. I don’t remember the names of these art papers, but this one is fan like and sort of feathery. Lots of holes etc. So, I glued it onto a piece of 300# Arches CP watercolor paper. I then thought I would paint some more tulips. I looked at it some more and decided lilies would be a better flower to paint. Plus, it has been a while since I have painted lilies and I really love to paint them. Especially the Stargazer lilies or varieties like that. So, I took out some photos I had taken years ago of some lilies that I had purchased and drew on the paper in pencil. This paper is very delicate, so I had to be careful when erasing lines to not rip it. I wanted to see how this paper would look with a watercolor. And I thought it would be fun to begin with the background. Well… it was interesting. I’m pretty sure there is no sizing in this paper, so the color spreads quickly. It was near impossible to control which made it kind of fun. I was able to just abandon all thought of control and go for a much looser, abstract of lilies. When I had finished the background and painted the lilies I realized that it wasn’t really working as a watercolor so I decided to get out the acrylics and have a go at it. I had so much fun painting it really thick. I painted the white right out of the tube, mixing on the paper with the pinks. Lots of fun. I re-did the background too after painting the flowers. Still the same colors,(I mixed a rosey gray), and made it very thin so there is still some of the papers texture showing through. The end result is a painting with lots and lots of texture. It is more impressionistic than anything else. This was the first time that I have painted flowers with acrylics and I gotta say I loved it! I’m thinking I may want to try oils at some point too. What I loved about the acrylics was how quickly they dried. Remember I live in Southern New Mexico and it is very dry here). I could see where the fast drying could be a curse though. I did use some extender in parts of it and some water as well. Generally I had enough time to work with it, and it was such a fun and interesting learning experience as to how the paint works and the different brushstrokes to use for the various effects. Overall it was a wonderful, textural experience.

Material Girl

Sara — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:53:17 +0000

I often tell myself and others that material things don’t matter to me. Well…I am lying when I say that. There are some things that I feel like I can’t live without and at the top of the list are art supplies! I am like a kid in a candy shop when looking at art supply catalogs or going to an online art supply store. Hours will go by as I browse through these virtual wonderlands. If I were to make my own version of heaven, it would be one big art supply store. It would have other things as well, but, mostly art supplies. Right now the main reason that I don’t want to die at any given time is the fact that I have no real assurance that I will be able to continue painting. Ok, I would really miss some people here on earth as well, especially my kids and Chris, but right after that is the fact that I may not be able to paint in heaven or where ever I am headed in the after life.

So, you can imagine how excited I was to have some deliveries yesterday and today of art supplies! I was so excited, I could feel my heart racing. I was giddy. When ever I get art supplies delivered to the house I am like this. It feels like my B-day and Xmas all rolled into one.

I bet you want to see what I got don’t ya?

These are the new Terry Ludwig pastels I got from Dakota Pastels. They are the “Maggie Price Basic Values Set”

Aren’t they just yummy? Below is a pic of the pastels I already had.

As you can see I’m running out of space in this drawer, and I decided I want to paint” en plein air” as often as possible, so I needed a box to hold most of my pastels. I found this “Degas Pastel box” at Jerry’s Artarama. It was a really good price too.

Pretty cool. Tomorrow will be spent sorting the pastels by color and value and putting them in this box. I’m so excited!

I have been working on a watercolor of tulips this week. I have to do the background and then will be done. It is a study of pink and yellow tulips. As soon as I finish it I will post it.

Also tomorrow I should be getting the rest of my art supplies–a French easel that was also on sale at Jerry’s plus a cart/chair combo to carry this stuff and also to be able to sit when painting out doors. I have never had a French easel before, so I am excited about all of this. I need to sit a lot when painting, because of my health issues. So, all in all I think I did pretty well with the art supplies I chose. I can’t wait to put them all to good use!

I hope all of you had a great day today and wish you all a happy, cheerful, sunny day tomorrow! I’m off to bed with my copy of “Painting with Pastels, Easy Techniques to Master the Medium” by Maggie Price.

P.S. Have I mentioned that I have been dreaming of pastels lately? Lots of colors and values etc. Not the paintings made from them, but the possibilities! I can’t wait t go to sleep;)