paintings prints and stuff

I've been asked if acrylic inks are lightfast. Here is what Daler Rowney say about them: FW Acrylic InksFW Artists' Ink is an acrylic based pigmented water resistant ink in a range of 30 colours, all of which have either a 3 or 4 star rating. Such a degree of lightfastness over such a range of fully intermixable colours makes them ideal for use by artists' in the production of pictures for permanent display. The inks, being pigment based, are strong and rugged. Strong bold applications of FW can be made in the manner of John Piper or Graham Sunderland, where colour strength, expression and fluidity are required. Equally, however, colours can be substainally diluted to achieve the most subtle of tones, very similar in character to watercolour. Such washes will dry to a water resistant film and successive layers of colour can be laid over in highly predictable manner. Clearly the combination of subtle tone work with strong colour overpainting suggests really interesting crea...

quoteKatherineT : Katherine said... This is really great Vivien Those acrylic inks sound interesting as well - can you show us on the blog - I'm not familiar with them. I think you'd really enjoy them Katherine (and others). They are ideal for anyone who wants to splash about a bit :) but could also be used more graphically, Here's a link to Jacksons page on acrylic inks: http://www.jacksonsart.co.uk/wildcardsearch.php?id=reallywild&searchterm=acrylic%20ink&mixedsearch=cheese&searchterm1=cheese&custorstaff=customer&searchdetermine=anyorder&searchterm1=cheese&route=fp (skim down to the FW inks - they are the ones I used) I only bought magenta, yellow and blue - plus a metallic blue I couldn't resist! They are really luscious and translucent and you thin them with water about 1 part ink to 2 parts water. They are really intense. I used them plus a borrowed fluorescent pink to underpaint this flower very very loosely, spraying water for the ink...

The weekend show is over and I'm exhausted! It was hard work but we all work together well. The village hall was a really nice venue and I think we all want to show there again ...... just not too soon! We had to carry the heavy display boards across the car park and assemble them, hang the work, arrange tea/coffee/cakes/mince pies (it creates a nice atmosphere and people linger ... and hopefully decide they will have that painting they want after all :) !). set up tables and chairs and our individual browsers ..... Then we 'man' the exhibition, talk to the visitors/buyers ... and then it all has to be dismantled, loaded back into the cars and we sort out the money - the coffee money goes to our group funds and we also give 5% of any sales to the group funds - that and the annual subs pay for the hire of the hall. Now I can think about Christmas and the next show in January. We made a few sales so it was all worth it :) I sold the one shown here. This is a small painting d...

I delivered the flower paintings to the gallery this week and today our group hung our small group exhibition - so I'm exhausted . The gallery were delighted with the work and wanted to show all of it - I had thought I'd give them a choice and bring some home for the weekend show. So I had to rush around sorting out some more of the trees and woods paintings and finish a flower canvas and frame a watercolour flower abstract in a rush this morning. These images are my boards from our small group show (in a church hall) There's more work on the wall and in a browser and folio as well. These shows with friends are really hard work but also fun - though each time we say we'll leave a gap before we go through it again! I'm dead on my feet now but have to be back there in the morning to 'man' the show with the friends. There are 8 of us showing work - the show looks great so lets hope it goes down well with the public. I am now fed up with framing and wrapping an...

I really don't enjoy all the work of putting the paintings together to show - all that painting of the edges of the canvas, putting on the D rings and cord (even with help from my husband with that).... ... and as for framing - I hate it! It costs me less if my framer makes the frames and cuts the mounts/mats and then I put the thing together. But you know how it goes. You polish the glass, no dust, you put the painting in - there's a speck of dust, you take it apart and clean it again, put it back together - there's more @"@^@@@**&@ dust :( This why I mainly work on canvas and yet I enjoy working on paper too. That's how I spent today though. I've yet to discover where I 'safely' put the picture hanging cord and they still need bubble wrapping. I have to deliver them on Wednesday and then on Friday I have to hang my section of a group exhibition with friends - and then 'man' it on Saturday and Sunday. Roll on Christmas and a bit of a bre...

I'm still working on this flower series, in between being pressured into covering extra classes, having new windows put in at home and feeling totally exhausted! This one is about 14x16 inches on canvas. I used acrylic inks - something I'd never used before and loved. I'll definitely be using them again ..... tomorrow I hope :) It was finished off with some acrylic paint then oil paint in places (more covering power) and a little drawing with a pearlescent blue Sennelier oil pastel . This one was started in the workshop I did last week. It was great fun and was really refreshing - pure experiment and no pressure.