Total Art Soul - for artists

I was watching some little Red Poles outside on one of our trees and I thought I’d try some new techniques; here is a step by step of the acrylic / water color painting. Here is the finished product:

New Techniques

Here is a method I stumbled onto that (for this painting anyway) has created a wonderful result.

With this painting I wanted a very loose background. Taking my sheet of watercolor paper I used a 1 1/2″ wash brush and wet the entire paper. Now holding it elevated at one end I lightly applied blobs and streaks of color vertically. As gravity pulled the paint downward vague impressions of birch trunks emerged. Before the paper dried I lightly sprinkled it with salt to imply a light snow falling gently to the ground.

With the background done I switch over to acrylic paint. With thin, semi-transparent strokes I begin to block in the birch branches.

Now I mix titanium white and water to apply the snow. It is important to use semi-transparent paint when using this technique because you do not want your different elements to appear pasted onto the transparent background. By implementing these less opaque applications of paint we are helping the painting to become a cohesive unit.

With the addition of the Redpoll the painting is now finished. Watercolor and acrylic on watercolor paper. 11×15

These Common Redpolls frequent our bird feeder on the porch. They remind me of God’s provision. Though they seem so little and insignificant upon first glance, each little bird has his own personality and quirks. He doesn’t worry where or how his next meal will come to be, even in the long cold winter. It is provided.

To see more step-by-step tutorials visit my website here: https://whitworthgallery.org/

This Original, "Eying the Feeder" is Available through Artic Rose Gallery. (907) 279-3911. 420 L St # 201 Anchorage, AK

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Today I felt like sharing the needle felt technique as I love to do so during autumn. So here we start. Needle felting is different from wet felting. With wetfelting you use water and soap, with needle felting not. It is sometimes also called dry felting.  This is everything you need:

• some wool fleece , (if you have roving it will be taking longer to get such a nice and even result. but it is usable too )
• feltingneedle (this needle has barbs , which get a fiber down and another one up)
• a sponge or styrpohor
• glue, can also be a hotglue machine
• acorncaps

things you need to make needle felted acorns

Step 1:

Divide your woolfleece into long pieces of  approximately  10 cm  (3.9 inch) or longer or lesser if you want thicker or thinner balls.

make it smaller to get the desired thickness of the acorn

I made them like this

a 3cm (1.2inch) wide "lock" is perfect

Step 2:

Start rolling it up from one side to the other. It makes it easier if you do this on a table as you should try to get it as tight as possible, saves you time later:)

start rolling it up tightly

This is how it looked like when I finished rolling

ready to get to the next stage

Step 3

Now place this fluffy ball of wool on the sponge and get your feltingneedle. I mostly use two:  one to stab into the wool  and one which holds the wool on the sponge. I can also hold it with my fingers but it is quite painfull when you stab into your fingers. So the second needle prevents me from doing so as my fingers are higher:) You can also use  a little stick or  fork for this.

stabbing time! be carefull with your fingers

I stab it from all sides, I mostly start at the side my wool ended. Stabbing from the tops makes it get more round instead of longwise.

stabbing from all sides

Step 4

You are ready when your ball feels hard and no woolfibres come out anymore. Now it is time to search for a nice acorn cap which would fit perfectly.

searching for the perfect cap

Step 5

When you have a cap; fill it with glue, make sure to add enough at the sides and stick your ball to the cap.

use enoug glue as the wool and cap will absorb some

after adding it into the cap hold it tight for a few seconds

Step  6

You are now finished, start making a new one or find a nice place to present it. Enjoy!!!

a nice spot in my house:)

Enjoy trying this out!!
If you have any questions please contact me!!

PS1 , I have enoug of this wool and will upload it to my supply shop: www.feltalakim.etsy.com if you want some:)

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This is pretty much a continuation of the previous post. I worked on two paintings at the same time, and it was a very interesting learning experience. Here are the progress pictures of the 9×12 almost three-quarter figure portrait of a lady in Icelandic national costume.

As usual, I started with sketches. This one was only one sketch that I altered many times trying to decide on the background (the reference photo, taken in a studio, has a very boring tan-beige-taupe-bleh background). On a totally irrational impulse, I made the background red. Maybe as a response to the boredom of the background in the photo?

Mark's Icelandic Mom - red

Mark's Icelandic Mom - gold, direct light

Mark's Icelandic Mom - gold diffused light

Well, this was the “fire” part of The Land of Fire and Ice, and most people I consulted (including those of you who so kindly left a comment to my post about it) felt that the figure disappeared in the intense red and/or gold background. So I tried the “ice” side of it, together with a mossy-medowy green:

And we finally settled on the background above, a hint at the glaciers and the grasses. On to the drawing:

(and no, I don’t like masking.. or doing details in general. I like splashing paint.)

And the completed painting:

In addition to learning a couple more things about working small in watercolor (hands were hard!) and spending hours figuring stuff out with an anatomy book (granted, I love doing that), I expanded my knowledge about Iceland beyond Bjork and volcanoes a little.

Question: how do you change a large area in a watercolor painting (like the background in those sketches) without painful scrubbing out and washing off?

Answer: Cover it with acrylic gesso and paint on top!(that’s what I did) Or use gouache. Or acrylics. Or pastels

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