Foxgloves

"Foxgloves"
8" x 6"
Acrylic on canvas panel

This must be one of those perfect springs for foxgloves. I've been to the Chicago Botanic Gardens twice in the past month and have been treated to a display of beauty I've not witnessed there before.  I have more reference photos of these spiked plants from this year alone, than all the years I've been documenting flower gardens.  

How fortunate for me!  Plants like this are my favorites to paint. AND this style of garden painting is one I will be teaching in my knife workshop in Chippewa Falls in about ten days. If you're in the area and interested, let me know. I may still have room in my class.

Carol

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Flame Froth

"Flame Froth"
6" x 6"
Alcohol Ink on Ceramic Tile 

I picked up a couple of six inch ceramic tiles at my local thrift store. The ink had colored my four inch tile from my workshop so beautifully, I wanted more.

I wiped this piece five times before liking what was happening. Turns out working on tiles is even more quirky than painting on Yupo. And titling this one was difficult, too!

Carol

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Fire In the Sky

"Fire In the Sky"
11" x 14"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

This is another painting that began as a simple, single-layered piece... meaning that all the color was dropped on the wet alcohol on the first pass.  It was "nice" but it wasn't fab. 

I disrupted the niceness of the first layer by adding multiple layers on top. If you recall from an earlier blog I mentioned that when wet ink pushes away dry ink it forms "fences."  Well, the dark parts of any of these images are made by stacked up transparent colors. There is no black or so-called dark inks. They are all highly transparent, beautiful colors — just bunched up on top of one another to form dark.

Carol

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Kablooey!

"Kablooey!"
11" x 14"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

This was a peaceful, wash of less than dramatic pastel colors when I brought it home from my workshop in Eau Claire. I nearly posted it, but wondered what would happen if...  

I impacted the serenity with the addition of red, more purple and some yellow. Oh, my.

I am teaching a workshop on knife painting with acrylics in Chippewa Falls, WI on June 9 and 10. If anyone is interested please let me know and I'll send you the information. 

Carol

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Froot Baskit

"Froot Baskit"
11" x 14"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

I turned this piece every which way as I dropped ink and alcohol onto the Yupo. I also blew the ink around with a very large-bore straw. It moved the ink, but didn't send it splattering. Not until I photographed it and rotated it did I realize there was "subject matter" in the mass/mess of color. But it, like the spelling of the title, is a little awry.  

I have signed none of my ink paintings. Not until they are sold and the purchaser tells me where to sign it, will I commit to the permanence of... Keene.

Carol

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Microcosm

"Microcosm"
14" x 11"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

It started out as a simple painting, but I had time, time to wait around to see what would happen... IF. There were a lot of "ifs" in this piece. I couldn't even tell you what happened between daiquiris and dinner, or baklava and bedtime. But I don't think I turned it into mud. 

"It is what it is,"says my friend, Mary.

Carol

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Blue By You

"Blue By You"
11" x 14"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

I was building a blue painting when I picked up a bottle of "citrus" green instead, and placed a droplet into the blue. Yikes! It pushed the drying blue into a hard dark edge, but looked kind of interesting.  Then I intentionally dropped several drips of "cranberry" onto the blue and formed a little blue island surrounded by red.  

Intentional is not a word I associate with alcohol ink. Nor is deliberate. It's more like happenstance, WTF and whodathunkit.  

Carol 

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Hubbub

"Hubbub"
14" x 11"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

As this one progressed, I kept adding more and more color to the already-drying puddles. It's what made so many hard edges. A spritz here and there made the small dots. It seemed to have a landscape quality to it, but land that had been ravished, sort of earthquake-like. 

I really had to relinquish control of my normal style of painting during these three days.  I submitted to a seldom-used part of my brain to make most of these alcohol paintings.

Carol

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Scarletta

"Scarlett"
14" x 11"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

I became bolder as I dripped ink onto the alcohol-moistened surface.  I combined a couple of different reds and perhaps a droplet of orange with three drips of yellow, in this instance. I allowed the puddles to dry without guiding or disturbing them. I did mist the top of the painting with alcohol, causing the pinkish splatters.  

I have a few more ink paintings to show you before moving on. Flowers are blooming in my zip code and they are beckoning me to uncap my oils.

Carol

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Bosco

"Bosco"
16" x 12"
Pastel on canvas

Now for something completely different.  I was commissioned to paint this dog for a friend as a surprise for his wife's Bat Mitzvah. Because I have a dog similar to this, I accepted the challenge. I knew that my squiggly marks would make Bosco come to life nicely. I made a couple of tiny changes, like white dots in the eyes, after this photo was taken, but the client and his children loved what they got.  

I shy away from painting specifics — like pet and people portraits. A sixteenth of an inch mistake can  turn Bosco into Bella. Roses and peonies don't get offended if their petals are a wee bit askance.

Carol

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Royally

"Royally"
4" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

Royal blue has fallen from favor in  fashion, home dec and the auto industry, but I found it fun to work with as I painted.

Stamp, spray, watch and wait. That's how this one went. I dropped ink into the areas where there are hard edges and wiped away some of the lighter edges with an alcohol-dampened Q-Tip.
I had fun the entire three days.

Carol

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Stalks

"Stalks"
7" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

When I put the yellow ink down on top of a glaze of blue, the lines were as fine as pencil lead. But as it dried, the yellow pushed away the blue, mingled with some of it and made the image you see here. 

One more image remains in my bag of tricks. Oh, I painted a LOT more than these, but I will save them to post when I have a large project on my easel.

Carol

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You're So Vein

"You're So Vein"
11" x 14"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

This painting turned out to look like a cross section of some fantasy place. It just happened as I played at the workshop a week ago. 

I had spritzed, which made tiny dots, then I pressed the crumpled clear wrap in which my pad of Yupo had been sealed, and stopped  messing with it as the ink dried (really fast). The pathway to draw veining with a fine-point Sharpie presented itself. So I drew little coils along the trail and knew a little of that would go a long way.

Carol

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Embrace

"Embrace"
9" x 12"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

Oh, boy, you must think I've abandoned my oils for alcohol ink. Well, I haven't. In fact, while these are posting, I'm working on commission pieces, including a dog portrait! Yes. I'm doing a pastel painting of a pooch. 

Here is a combination of many of the techniques I learned from Pat Hamm. My work is nothing like hers. It would be almost impossible for me to duplicate her efforts in this medium. Nope, hers are hers, mine are quite definitely mine.

Carol

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Greenly

"Greenly"
3.5" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

I fully intended to do more to this... after lunch on Tuesday of last week, but when I got back and saw the edges where the green and yellow had met and became fast friends, I left it alone. 

It's hard to leave a small painting alone that has the potential to become a learning experience, but it happened several times during the workshop and THAT alone was a part of my growth. "Don't dink with it," a phrase my friend and I threw back and forth when we painted murals together, kept playing in my head.

Carol

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Tiny Cabbages

"Tiny Cabbages"
4" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

I didn't intend to mess with this piece, but as three sections began to dry, I took a brush with just a few eyelash hairs in it and dragged the ink around to make three little cabbage-like images.  

It's a small piece, but interesting to look at if you get up close.  Would be cute, framed and on a table easel.

Carol

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Flower-ish

"Flower-ish"
7" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

Anyone who knows my subject matter preferences, knows that I love to paint realistic, close-up, single bloom flowers. Roses in particular.  So you can imagine how difficult it was for me NOT to touch the inks as they formed what, to me looked like a flower.  Okay, squint, and maybe it'll look like one to you, too.  

If the flower image doesn't do it for you, just accept this piece as it is; what happens when ink droplets are placed on top of another color at varying degrees of dryness.  See the soft yellow edge? It was placed on the red while the red was still wet. The hard edged yellow pushed the dry red ink out of the way as it spread, making a ridge (like plowed snow) of the underlying color.  Learning by doing!

Carol

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Hold the Blue

"Hold the Blue!"
7" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo 

The red and yellow ink was moving around the Yupo when I began stamping. I was about to add blue, but thought better of it.  

Restraint prevailed in two ways.  I didn't add blue and I didn't spritz this one with pure alcohol from a mister (as I found I loved to do!).

Carol

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Tile

"Tile"
4" x 4"
Alcohol Ink on Ceramic Tile

Happy Mother's Day. This looks like a something my own mother would have liked. She adored aqua. 

This is another ground I used for the alcohol ink — a four inch ceramic tile. No, it doesn't smear, but if I were to use it for, say, a coaster, I would want to spray it with a couple of coats of clear acrylic.

Love,
Carol

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Marks

"Marks"
7" x 7"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

I was free to explore on my own, after the demo, so I deferred to my primary colors. I feel safe with good ole red, yellow and blue.

The surface was wet with ink, so I applied clear alcohol to the foam stamp and impressed it into the blue. It picked up color. I put it back on the surface and impressed and picked up again, moving across the page. Then I added droplets of yellow in the whitened areas and finally red in the stamping closest to us. Entirely a learning experience.

Carol

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Dance-Ink

"Dance-Ink"
14" x 11"
Alcohol Ink on Yupo

This was one of my first attempts at controlling the uncontrollable medium of alcohol ink. What is it, you ask?  Alcohol ink is the ink you apply to rubber stamp pads.  The craft of stamping has given us a new medium to play with. Ttransparent ink dripped on a sheet of Yupo (PVC plastic in sheet form) coated in alcohol is quite the wrestling match to watch. On this piece, I used a yellow, blue and red to create what you see here. It didn't begin ANYTHING like this, but when it stopped moving (dried) this is how it ended.  

Tomorrow I'll show you how AI looks when you TRY to control it.  I put on my cowgirl boots and grabbed a lasso...  well, you'll see.

Carol

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Serengeti Sunset 3 of 3

"Serengeti Sunset" 3 of 3
4" x 4"
Oil on wrapped canvas

This is the right hand panel of the triptych.  There is no black in the painting. The darks are purples and greens and browns mixed to make the darkest darks.  

You'll see the finished panels when they are completed, but not for a couple of weeks.  Tomorrow I will begin posting some of the alcohol ink paintings I did in the workshop with Pat Hamm in Eau Claire.

Carol

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Serengeti Sunrise 2 of 3

"Serengeti Sunrise" 2 of 3
4" x 6"
Oil on wrapped canvas

Here is the center panel of the prototype of the commission piece I am working on. The finished piece will be 24" x 36".  

Thank all of you who have written to me regarding my car accident. I am a little fragile today, but only because my creative mind keeps replaying the scene before impact.  My body was not injured, so I will be fine in a day or so. I'll tire of the same images sooner or later!  Although, I have watched "Wonder Boys" about 30 times.

Carol

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Serengeti Sunset

"Serengeti Sunset" 1 of 3
4" x 4"
Oil on wrapped canvas

This is a prototype of the left hand panel of a triptych commissioned by a Wisconsin client, from his African safari photos. The final piece will be to this scale, but instead of four inches, it will be 24".  The center is a rectangle, and another square will be on the right hand side. 

I delivered the triptych prototype in person last week while I was in Wisconsin taking a workshop with my friend Patricia Hamm.  I have been gone for nine days, doing so many fun and art-related things.

But my trip ended on a harrowing note. I was in a car accident right ON the Wisconsin/Illinois border. A large metal object fell from the bed of a semi. The car in front of me hit it and it ruptured the oil reservoir, which sprayed all over my windshield as broken chunks of the metal object bounced all over the interstate highway.  I hit a bouncing chunk and it punctured something under my car.  Both the Illinois and Wisconsin police were called to the incident site. Both of our cars were not drivable. Mine got towed to Rockford, where I had to rent a car to drive the last hour and a half home. I'm home now, and unharmed. Yet it was WAY too much like the head-on collision I was in 19 years ago this month, when a car hit a curb and launched itself into the air and hit me. My painting hand was broken, my femur, hip and toes were, too. I didn't walk for a very long time. Didn't drive for 15 months.

I consider myself a lucky, lucky woman.  That metal chunk could have gone through my windshield and this blog entry would have read very differently.

Love to you, my dear followers,
Carol