Cath Sheard Art

Tag: abstraction

  • Gelli print landscapes

    I’ve got the urge to start stitching again, so I’ve been reading the Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn books, including Stitchscapes. Looking at their sketchbook pages reminded me how much I enjoy creating abstracted landscapes so this afternoon I got out my Gelli Plate and some of the favourite Atelier paints. I taped my Gelli plate onto a piece of copier paper so I could line up multiple pulls and got to work. I’ve done 9 prints on good paper, and 4 on copier paper that are just from cleaning the plate – these often turn out really well because of all the tiny bits of colour that get picked up.

    Most of the prints have 4 or 5 full or partial layers of paint, and all have the sun in them using Atelier’s Rich Gold series 4. This is a lovely metallic to use – it’s not as harsh as some metallics. Alongside my trusty old paints I’ve been trying out some new ones that I got sent as part of a sample kit; Liquitex heavy body Green Gold and Quinacridone Magenta. They are both really nice to use – they’re single pigment transparent colours and flow so well. I can see me moving to Liquitex from Atelier if I ever use up my paint stash!

    These prints may stay as they are or I may try adding a little stitching to some of them, just to see how it feels.

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  • Playing with layers in the chaos

    I have a couple of days leave – replacement days for working Easter – so have been creating all kids of things in amongst working on the newspaper and some other bits that I need to get done.  As you can see, when I get really into creating mode my desk can get a bit overloaded. Mind you, a friend who is moving countries once her house sells just gave me a huge pile of beads and glitter, which hasn’t helped the state of chaos because I’m not sure where to store them in my stash yet! (thanks Doris – I appreciate it and will love using it all up)

    The journal page was inspired by one of Donna Downey’s Inspiration Wednesday videos  I love the way she works in layers, her videos are always fun to watch and she’s really good at explain both her thought process and her art process. If you want to check out her videos a quick search of Donna Downey on YouTube will do the trick.

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  • Trusting myself to paint

    The piece I’m working on was looking quite ‘pretty’ but I knew it needed an ancient wall. This meant trusting my instinct and being prepared to act – something I have been not so good at in recent times. with my art This afternoon I took a deep breath, made a mask, grabbed some brown and black inks and started making an ancient wall right over the top of the some of the prettiness. It feels good to be trusting myself to grab paint and go for gold. Here are some detail shots (in reverse order – oops)

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  • More progress – details

    Here’s some late afternoon shots showing the progress in wee patches of detail. The layers now include very dilute fluid acrylics, heavy body acrylic and spray inks.

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  • Progress shots

    For once I am remembering to take rough ‘n ready photos as I work through the many, often ugly duckling, stages of a mixed media painting. The photos are quick, crooked and poorly lit, but are enough to show the process I work through, and are in order.

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