paintings prints and stuff

Using Diptic and Adobe Photoshop Express Apps Diptic and Adobe Photoshop Express Apps for the iPad review I've used these 2 apps with photos here, but of course they will work equally well with art work, digital or analogue :>) I like the above image - it's a montage of my youngest grandson at Christmas  :>) I put the pictures together in an app called Diptic  - which has a variety of grids you can choose from (and edit) to create montages.   You can move the images about and enlarge or reduce them within their grid.   These were all cut from larger photos. It's very very simple to use and well worth having if you want to create this sort of compilation. The images were dropped into the grid, the text added and the whole changed to black and white in Diptic, then in Adobe PE I gave it a grainy texture.    I think these grids work best in black and white or sepia - or in the Warhol like effects of the thermal camera or similar....

Edge of Charnwood, Derwent Inktense and Artbars in the Stillman and Birn Gamma Sketchbook I do lots of quick demos of different mark making options with various media materials in my classes.   Some end up as finished pieces but others have elements I like though aren't complete in themselves.   This collage is made up from torn fragments with just a very little extra work - a few lines in copper oil pastel and artbar. The rocks were once a stormy evening sky in a quick Artbar demo. The Artbars and Inktense are lovely to use with their ability to create graphic marks as well as washes of colour and the S&B paper is thick enough to hold up to the collaged elements well.

Rocks and sea in Stillman and Birn Gamma sketchbook, with Derwent Artbars and Neocolor II I decided to try some collage in the Gamma sketchbook today while the class were working - tearing up old demo sketches,   The rocks in this one started life as undergrowth and tree trunks.   Marks in trees, rivulets in wet sand and the cracks in rocks can be so similar in pattern - turn them round and the subject changes.  :>) The grass, sea, far headland and a few strokes of vegetation were added with a mix of Derwent Artbars and Neocolor II. This book has the 100lb ivory paper, which held up to the washes extremely well.   I do rather like ivory or cream paper - it has character.   How about you?

  Winter, Misty Day. watercolour and mixed media 9x6ins approx What to do with failed paintings?   cut them up .......... and re-use pieces, playing with ideas for future work. These pieces for the trees were cut from wider trees in a painting I decided was a write off - a what-on-earth-was-I- doing ? piece compositionally. The birches were subtle colours and I thought it would be interesting to keep the background in greyscale to bring out the colours but keep the whole piece very low key. They were done in a mix of media - Winsor & Newton artists watercolours, a touch of Inktense, some gouache, some coloured pencil.  Daniel Smith paint The background was washed in with Daniel Smith's Kyanite to try it out.   I don't generally buy greys, mixing my own, but these are supposed to be single pigment so I thought it might be interesting to look at.   I bought just the one  tube of DS to see what I thought of the brand.  Verdict: It's n...

Towards Dusk, mixed media and collage, 11x14 inches Another one in the series of birches. I've done more to the previous 2 and will show them when they are completed. I was adding the dimension of time to this - hope it 'reads' to others?

Work in progress, collage and mixed media: Birches and Pool. Vivien Blackburn Leading on from those previous studies and sketches done from trees plein air - this is the piece currently being worked out, abstracting and developing the work. This one may be going to America. It's 11x14 - I'd really like to be doing this much bigger but that's the size it has to be for this show. Details: The top and the sides are a sort of ambiguous border - elements overlap and weave across but it is disjointed and separate from the central part. The top section has yet to be finished but most of the rest is complete. All the trees are separate pieces of paper/painting and the background and foreground terrain are collage (papers that I've painted myself, cut and torn). You can read a bit more about it here Feedback welcome - any thoughts anyone? Click on the above image for further work on trees

1 Evening Woods, digital image, Vivien Blackburn At the end of the post are the 2 images that were combined to create this - a simple collage + drawing and a mixed media sketch. I layered them in Photoshop - 3, 4 and 5 are simply combinations of the sketch and collage - 1 and 2 had a gradient added and combined to give the glow of colour. I experimented with brightness and contrast, curves, layer options and opacity to get the different colour schemes and effects - possibly more, I lose track of what I've used! The combination - to me - is far more interesting than the simple cut out shapes of the demo, done quickly for the class. 2 3 4 5 1st element in the combination: cut paper collage and drawing 2nd element in the combination: mixed media sketch I find experiments like this are really useful for feeding into work in paint/mixed media on a larger scale. What do you think? Do you use the computer and your sketches this way? or some other way?

Winter tree, collage, ink and coloured pencil. Vivien Blackburn A quick demo to some class members struggling with the concept of mixed media. Just scraps of coloured paper from the oddments drawer at college, some ink and coloured pencil for the branches and stylised grasses. I wanted to show them that it didn't have to be incredibly difficult or involved but could be extremely simple, fitting in with the kind of drawing they liked to do. I think it has a rather 1950s look to it do you?

detail details, mixed media on 20x16 inch canvas, work in progress (below right) Here it is in progress, hanging next to Saltmarsh. I decided not to keep the background white but keep closer to the original sketch and more natural colours. The blue really was that blue - it is a natural colour there on a good day - honestly! See my photographic evidence here :>) The border and sides are now black . I took some of the black into the painting in line form, not all the 'drawing' in it is black but where it is, it links to the border well. The water around the rocks is greener in reality - that beautiful milky turquoise green that water, full of air bubbles, around rocks turns. Lots of things still need tweaking and pushing - so all is subject to change :>) The mine buildings are made of stone and blend into the cliffs, looking almost as if they grew there naturally, not standing out at all - I want to keep this and catch their strength/fragility - heavy stone but so v...

The Crowns, Botallack, mixed media, detail This is the next one in the series for the forthcoming project exhibition. It's worked over an older painting that had turned into a total pigs ear. The parts I was happy with have changed drastically. Now I've stopped I can see several things I want to change - the direction of that gulley/ravine for a start and the too-even-at-the-moment stripes of colour in the sea. Full size image but not a good photo I'm afraid I'll try to get a better photo of the next stage. I particularly wanted to keep the sketchiness of the orinal plein air drawing, with its ragged edges. This one won't have a border in the sense that Saltmarsh did - but it will have that white edge and the sides of the deep canvas will be white.

Saltmarsh - maybe finished? 20x16 ins, mixed media and collage on canvas, Vivien Blackburn The blue-mauve background that was surrounding the painting wasn't playing up the colours in the painting - instead it was fighting for attention with them. So I decided to change it to a deep bitter chocolate colour - burnt umber and cerulean blue, cooling and greying the brown. It's a colour that flickers throught the painting. It now highlights the colours and their subtle changes from warm to cool (that sadly don't pick up well in the photos) and emphasises the drawing. There is a very little black from the charcoal but all other darks are deep shades of brown and blue. I added flicks of copper in the leaves of the tree, in the tree on the left and in the reflections. I like the warmth against the other colours. That is also quite difficult to photograph being metallic. It's a bit more subtle in real life, the camera make it gleam too brightly - the second to last pho...

Saltmarsh, work in progress, Vivien Blackburn This is where the canvas now is. I've sent that middle building back a bit, changed the colour of the border from a turquoise based blue to a mauvey one and introduced that into the painting. I've brought the light colour into the sky to silhouette the trees. I've collage a little more texture into the sand with tissue paper. I've flicked little bits of paint for gravel and leaves. I've worked on the way your eye follows the lines of the wet mud/sand etc through and up. You can see stages and close ups below: I'm thinking of adding the faintest traces of copper in the trees and the bush in front of the building on the left - just a hint of a warm colour. I won't be able to work on it for a couple of days now as I'm teaching extra hours, so it can sit on my desk while I think about where next. Any thoughts?

Work in progress , Saltmarsh in mixed media, 16x20 inches. Vivien Blackburn This is an experiment with a mixed media piece with collage, acrylics, charcoal and ink. It's loosely based on sketches done plein air - but only loosely. The project it is part of is explained here . I rarely use collage so this is about pushing the boundaries, doing something new and having fun experimenting :>) Details below: There is a lot of layering paint, scumbling. glazing. sgraffito, collage. splattering. drawing into ..... and more! What I want to do with this is combine drawing with the collage and paint. The artist I've chosen to look at for the project is J0hn Piper . An example of his work here . The idea is to bounce off the artist you choose and produce your own work. not simply work 'in the style of'. I'm planning to knock the blue border back a bit and make it more subtle and moody. Anyone using collage? any thoughts???

Experimenting with those lino prints: Winter Light, Vivien Blackburn, lino and coloured pencil A lino print on left hand page of sketchbook, printed onto tissue paper and then worked on with Polychromos pencils and continued across the double page spread. Trying to catch a cold winter light - the kind that bleaches the colour out of the landscape. Moonrise, Vivien Blackburn, linoprint and coloured pencil, Vivien Blackburn This one was printed onto tracing paper and I then worked on the back of it with Polychromos pencils and again, continued the image onto the facing page. This one makes me think of the mood in Samuel Palmer paintings - does it for you? I've put some of the lino prints on my Etsy shop if anyone is interested - here

Liquid , collage, hand made sketchbook experiment. Vivien Blackburn I've been talking to friends and students about visual language a lot just lately. Playing a Suzanne Vega CD in the car coming home, some of her lyrics echoed the conversations - so visual and expressive: If language were liquid It would be rushing in Instead here we are In a silence more eloquent Than any word could ever be These words are too solid They don't move fast enough To catch the blur in the brain That flies by and is gone Gone Gone Gone ........... and Find the line, find the shape Through the grain Find the outline, things will Tell you their name Suzanne Vega, from Language and Night Vision 'too solid' - 'don't move fast enough to catch the blur in the brain' before it's gone - yes that's sketching in the landscape with our changing English light. Fleeting flashes of sunlight or passing clouds on the sea or a hillside, pure drama . This is why so often I like to sk...

collage and mixed media, Vivien Blackburn An experiment with collage. I had some lovely marbled paper that a gift had come in and decided to use it as the start of a small image in my little leather bound sketchbook with the hand made paper. There are 2 pieces of marbled paper, selected for the shapes printed. I then used coloured pencils, felt pen and a little biro to match colours and extend the swirls, adapt them and add the rocks and sea - I may adjust it slightly yet, You can see more collages of mine here . A friend mentioned that it reminded her of those dress prints of the 1960s! it does have that feel doesn't it?

digital collage - Vivien Blackburn This is a very simple digital collage, combining some of the rocks from the long panoramic view of Sennen Cove with the marbling *analogue* collage shown earlier, made using my marbling experiments. I used the clone tool and multiple layers to add to blank areas and change things a little. Then the burn and dodge tools to lighten and darken areas for emphasis and the eraser to delete unwanted areas and redefine rock shapes with new edges. Finally I flattened the layers. I could possibly develop this into an abstract in the future, on a large canvas. moving it on not simply copying it, so when my printer recovers from its nervous breakdown I'll print it off and put it in my sketchbook for future reference. I thought the patterns went quite well together. What do you think?

Edge of the Waves, marbling, collage and coloured pencil, Vivien Blackburn (unfinished work in progress) I've been learning how to use marbling techniques to create gorgeous papers - I've got a lot to learn but it was fun! I wanted to use the papers in collage and my first experiments are here. They are done with torn and cut marbled papers, some watercolour and a little coloured pencil. Tides Edge, marbling, watercolour, collage, Vivien Blackburn Oily inks were dripped into a large tray of water, they float on the surface and I swirled them with the end of a paintbrush, breaking up the globs of ink and creating swirls and drifts of colour. Then a sheet of paper was dropped in, sometimes lifted out without dragging and sometimes dragging it to create extra movement of the swirls. I used watercolour paper and cartridge paper, for the effects I wanted the cartridge paper worked better, the ink continued to move for a little as you lifted the paper out. With the watercolour pape...

collage and mixed media in sketchbook, swirling surf at the sea's edge. Vivien Blackburn It's fun to just play and experiment sometimes - new ideas develop that way. The sketches above are a mix of collage - marbled paper, some brown and olive green paper, a torn up small painting and a touch of coloured pencil, biro and tippex (typing correction pen) I like using collage and really ought to use it more often in larger work. This was done in Lindsay's sketchbook in the FPP sketchbook exchange. Do you use collage?

2 sketchbooks arrived from Gesa for the moleskine exchange, belonging to Brian and Lorraine - and they are looking fabulous! :>) Lorraines theme is CLOSE. She started the book off with a drawing of her beloved garden in coloured pencil , closely followed by a naughty couple in the undergrowth by David getting very close ;>) , already shown on our website. Now Gesa has followed on with this great lively view of children and tenements, washing blowing in the breeze. It somehow has echoes of the stable and Bethlehem don't you think? Gesa Helm's gorgeous lively Joan Eardley tribute - In Lorraine's sketchbook in the moley exchange. Joan Eardley is a favourite artist of mine, I love both her Glasgow tenement paintings of urchins and her beautiful free abstracted landscapes. a close up of the children by Gesa Helms The other book belongs to Brian, who started off with moody local landscapes in coloured pencil - did you use solvent Brian? the double page Marsh fe...