Found Some Claybord!

Golden Field at Sunset.  Watercolor & Crayon.
5 x 7 inches.

I went to collect some watercolor paper yesterday and ran across a piece of Ampersand's Aquabord. I bought it ages ago, and I suspect it may be claybord, but a few minutes of research tells me that it's one and the same--just renamed.

This is a piece that's 5 x 7 inches, and one of the big advantages is in the framing.  No glass.  Can plop it right in the frame.  I tried mounting watercolor paper at the end of last year, and I'm not particular enough.  To mount paper requires patience and attention to detail.  You can look at my painting style and know that's not me!

I liked the way it handled the water and paint.  I did the first cut yesterday and went back today to add some darks and a tiny bit of gray crayon just at the horizon line.  I'm pretty pleased.

Indian yellow, phthalo blue gs, and quin violet with a touch of gray caran d'ache.

Mounting A Watercolor

Spring Trees.  Watercolor Mounted On Board.
10 x 8 inches.
(Below the painting is an antique toilet paper roll from
my husband's grandfather, who was a plumber!)

Evendale Fine Arts Exhibit This Weekend

 A couple of paintings framed and ready to head to the Evandale Cultural Arts Center tomorrow for their Fine Arts Exhibit.  The show opens on Friday, May 2 and the opening reception is from 6-9 pm.  The Center is located at 10500 Reading Road (at the intersection of Reading & Glendale-Milford in Evendale, OH).

It took me three tries to cut the mat for the crocus, which must mean my brain is having trouble with May--typically, matting is kind of fun.  It's not fun when something comes out wrong.   That's also my dog looking anxious.  It was time to pick up her boys, and we were not leaving--she hovers to make sure she gets to come.

I'll be babysitting the show on Sunday afternoon from 2-4 pm--come on by and say hello or join me at the reception.

Finding the painting inside the painting.....

 I started painting in 2001.  Over the years, even though I haven't always painted consistently, I have accumulated quite a number of paintings.  They are stacked in a drawer and on a shelf in the basement.  For the Northminster Fine Arts Show, I decided to see if I could clear some of my shelf space and salvage some of my older paintings.  A lot of them are what I would call watercolor sizes.  A full sheet of watercolor is 22 x 30 inches, and watercolor artists frequently paint on a half or quarter sized sheet.  None of these sizes fit neatly with a standard gallery sized frame.  Custom frames are expensive, so I began to consider how I could crop my paintings.  I started to look for the bast painting within a painting.

I bought two sets of standard sized mats (8 x 10 inches with a 5 x 7 inch opening and 16 x 20 inches with a 10 x 14 inch opening) from clearbags.com and here are two results.

The original painting was about 15 x 22 inches (half sheet), and the cropped painting is 10 x 14 inches.  Painted c. 2006.  Sunflower Bouquet. Sold.

In the original, the background and "busy" space are evenly divided across a diagonal, which weakens the composition of the painting.  In the cropped painting, most of the background, surrounds emphasized the sunflower, which made it more the focal point of the painting. 

This original painting was done around 2004 and was about 11 x 14.  It was never finished.  The cropped painting is 5 x 7 inches. I think the center section makes a nice loose interpretation all by itself.  Glass Vases.

Tape Glider

I mentioned in a previous post that many artist watercolor artists are having a love affair with paint. Many of us are also having a love affair with our supplies.  I just bought a tape glider, and I'm more than a little excited about it.

What does a tape glider have to with painting?  Well, not much.  It does have a lot to do with framing, which eats up a lot time, energy, and money.  I was using double sided tape to build mats, add paper backings to frames, and well, it was a pain.  A tape glider is an applicator for applying double sided tape--it looks like this:

It really is pink.  Spiffy, yes?  It makes taping go so much faster and neater.  I'm almost looking forward to all the framing I need to do in the next week.  Almost.  I also have to cut mats.  Cutting mats is.....I'd say best left to professionals, or people with mat cutting machines, but it's so expensive.  Hopefully, my next big tool will be a mat cutter.