Now that I got the hackers out of the way, I can post new info. I have been doing some Mixed Media work....which has been a lot of fun. I love to experiment getting different kinds of textures from ordinary things. I use heavy duty watercolor paper and make samples as I experiment. I also have tried watercolors on canvas board (doesn't work) and done light watercolors on sketch paper (works if you let it dry for 5 or 10 minutes, cover with parchment paper then weight it down. I have fabric covered bricks that I use for this purpose. When I'm ready for a certain look, I can refer to the samples. Recently, I wanted to see which materials work to distress/make photographs look old. I wanted a somewhat "veiled" effect. I took laser printer black & white photographs and using Mod Podge, glued the photos to a watercolor page. Then, I placed wet tea bag material over it and brushed with more Mod Podge. The image started to wrinkle, so I placed parchment over it and weighted it as mentioned above, for 15 minutes. When I returned, it had dried, with a nice crinkled effect over the photo, which you could still see very well. Very pleasing. However, when I used a different experiment, using a used dryer sheet on top instead of the tea bag material, this made for a "too veiled" effect. Looks like the person is being seen from behind a screen door, you can barely determine what the image is. For my watercolor sketches, I found colored pencils that can be used for sketching, then afterward be made into a watercolor using a fine brush along the pencil lines. I did find, though, that even the tiniest brush is too thick for fine lines & went looking for an alternative. I discovered that Ace Hardware has a Hobby Lobby store that carries craft cotton swabs.....they look like tiny little Q-Tips and with water, you can control how thick your watercolor line is.

HACKERS!

Got an email that indicated that hackers had entered this blog. Info has been changed so there shouldn't be an interruption in viewing my pages Sorry if they have inconvenienced anyone trying to view this site. Eli

More pencil sketches

My first Mixed Media canvas. This was a lot of fun. I have done two more and will post those soon. The box of materials gets larger every day. I even got Lance interested in scrounging for materials, too, even
though he doesn't want to work on the projects, just wants to be supportive! He never complains when
art materials dominate surfaces everywhere. We've been together 40 years so he's used to it.........

We came home one night to find two "albino" lizards on either side of our porch light! It's amazing, you
can see right through them!

The next images are pages from my journal. The latest experiment was using first aid gauze over the page,
using Mod Podge. (the third image) It is relaxing to create these and they don't take much time.

Early in June I started an art journal, which has been a great place to do short little art projects. Some
are inspirational, others are an experiment in materials to see how different ones turn out. Using Mod Podge
I have tried many materials to go over images.....The first was a teabag, cut up & dried out after the tea was made....it had a brownish tint to it from the tea. See photo below

Later, I tried another journal page with an industrial paper towel, as shown below