Artistic Polar Bear Challenge: 100 Ways In 100 Days. #99 - Drawing With Acrylic....Sort Of

I woke up this morning with an unexplainable case of Fuzz Brain.  Basic Brain was taking care of all of it's usual tasks - I was able to breathe, stand, walk, and talk somewhat coherently, but anything much beyond that was taking a concentrated effort.  I found myself standing in the middle of my kitchen, knowing I needed to do something but couldn't remember what it was.  Thankfully, the loudly meowing, cranky fuzzball undulating around my ankles awakened me from my stupor, and reminded me of the task I set out to do ("...oh yeah, feed the cat"). 

I was at least able to find my way into the studio, but fresh ideas about how to create today's bear were not forthcoming.  I poked Right Brain with a mental stick several times, but all that issued were used ideas of past bears (...."collage"...*poke*..."color scheme"..*poke*..."substrate"...*poke*.."just do another collage, and stop poking me, dammit, I'm tired.").  A CAT scan taken of my skull would show Right Brain lying in a deflated, amorphous heap, currently incapable of creating a novel concept. 

In desperation, I grabbed the nearest thing within reach - the Clear Tar Gel.  I poured a puddle of it on the glass palette, then drew the bear into the wet gel. 

Acrylic Drawing Bear

Rather than swirling color through the wet gel, I wanted to paint transparent color on the front and back of the dried gel, creating optical color mixes.  The problem with this logic is that it takes the gel a full day to dry thoroughly enough to lift off of the glass, so it won't be dry until tomorrow.

Apparently Left Brain isn't functioning up to capacity, either.  Anyone know where I can get a new one?

So while we wait for the gel to dry, a guest artist has offered their take on the bear for today's blog.

Annette's Bear

Tomorrow - the finish of #99, and the final bear of the series.

Artistic Polar Bear Challenge: 100 Ways In 100 Days. #95 - Acrylic ImageTransfer

This is a great way to add  images to your paintings.  For some chemically scientific ink-y reason or other, this only works with a photocopy, and not images printed on an ink-jet printer.

I ran the photo of the bear through Photoshop, reducing it to a black and white line image, and then dutifully photocopied it.  Then it was covered with a thick layer of Clear Tar Gel.

The gel was left to dry overnight.  The following day, the bear took a bath.

 This softened up the paper so it could be scraped from the back of the transfer.

Transfer Bear

Ta-daaaa!  It worked!

And...that's as far as I got.  I had grand plans to add color to the reverse side of the image, and collage it on a painted board, but life got in the way.  Our refrigerator  hiccupped, sputtered, made all kinds of wheezy noises, and with a final clank, ceased it's cooling duties.  It's only five years old.  I'm not sure how old that is in refrigerator years, but it's much too young to die.  Thankfully we have a freezer in the basement, so those items were easy to transplant, but that left us running around the neighborhood begging fridge space from the neighbors.  A visit from the repairman tomorrow will determine if the fridge can be revived.

Ain't life fun?

Artistic Polar Bear Challenge: 100 Ways In 100 Days. #90 - Acrylic Skins

Are we really at #90 already?!  I feel as if we've just begun. :-P

One of the things I love about acrylics is their versatility.  There are almost countless oodles of things you can do with them, which makes my inner Mad Scientist cackle with glee.  Today we're going to play with acrylic skins, which are sheets of dried acrylic paint.

Yesterday, I applied paint in various colors to two tempered glass cutting boards that I use as palettes.   The paint was left overnight to dry.

Today, the paint patches were peeled up off of the glass intact.  One of the myriad of things these skins can be used for is collage.

 Acrylics by their very nature lose volume when drying, and thicker skins are much easier to work with.  When I applied the paint to the cutting boards, I thought I applied it thickly enough.  Oh...not so.  When dry, these skins were almost paper thin.  The skins also retain a bit of stickiness until they're fully cured, which means they stick to themselves, to you, and to almost anything else they come in contact with.  The only place they weren't sticking is where I wanted them to.  So the whole exercise was akin to trying to tear sheets of Saran Wrap into little pieces, and glue them to a board.  The words that were flying out of the studio today were not words that you would find in any dictionary.

 Acrylic Skins Bear

Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I'm stuck to my keyboard, and need to go wash up.