Mixed Media Artist

    Last week was a vacation week for me, but I worked anyway.  This week I really really really mean it!  See you next week <3

Fall Aflame Cyndi Lavin, 2017 Prints for sale Sometimes your silicone mixture just doesn't come out right!  I was trying for a mix of some bright colors with cells using the Pour and Swipe method of liquid acrylic painting.  Something didn't get mixed up properly, or else I mixed in the wrong proportions, because as soon as I swiped the black across the paints, they streaked instead of forming cells.   Since it was ruined anyway, I tried an experiment, which I ended up rather liking!    Here is the initial set up: White gesso on heavy watercolor paper , paints mixed up (I thought) like in my previous liquid paintings.  But they look grainy, don't they? As soon as I swiped, this is what I got...a total mess with colors sliding all over each other and no cells at all.  Since it was such an irredeemable mess, I sprayed it with some more silicone and watched the colors break up and move around even more.  It was kind of c...

So far, we've gone through the steps for doing a pour and swipe liquid painting and a pour and tilt liquid painting!  This week, we'll look at the flip cup method. Each of these techniques has its benefits and its limitations.  I really like the flip cup method, but you have the least control with this one.  It's fun to not know what you're going to get, but it can be frustrating too! For the set up, follow the first three steps from last week.  Even the paint colors that I used are the same, and are listed in step four.  Funny how totally different this one turned out from last week when they were the same colors! 4. Pour the paints from their smaller individual cups into a large disposable cup, each one on top of the previous color in this order: Titanium white , Cobalt teal , white again, Pyrrole orange , white again, and Quinacridone magenta . 5. Flip the cup upside down onto the masonite board.  Hold it down and swirl it slightly. ...

Last week, we looked at the " pour and swipe " method of liquid acrylic painting.  Today I want to share a different method that we'll call " pour and tilt ".  There is no one right way to do these paintings, but you will get the best cell development if you use silicone, Floetrol, or other chemical inclusions to help them set.  Sometimes you will pour these paintings and get amazing cells, which disappear as time goes on and they set :-(  Do yourself a favor and take a picture early if you really like what you got, because it just might not last!   1. Gesso some masonite boards and let them dry.  2. Place a prepared board inside an aluminum pan, raised up on small cups.  Make sure the surface is completely level. 3. Mix your paints.  This is how I did it: Small blob of heavy bodied paint in a small cup. Equal amount of GAC 100 (a Golden product).  Stir well. Add self-leveling medium or GAC 800 equal to or more th...

Eruption Cyndi Lavin, 2017 A few months ago, I, like so many others, got bit by the liquid acrylic pour painting craze.  I watched many wonderful youtube videos and experimented several times before I got the mixture that worked for me...at least for what I wanted to accomplish.  My disclaimer...there is a product called Floetrol that some people are using in order to achieve larger and more stable cells in their pours.  I don't use it, so I end up with smaller lace-like effects, which I prefer. To each his own!  This is how I did what we're going to call the "Pour and Swipe" method. 1. Gesso a masonite board and let it dry.  You may as well do several at one time, because you're for sure going to want to do more than one pour! 2. Place a prepared board inside an aluminum pan, raised up on small cups.  Make sure the surface is completely level. 3. Mix your paints.  There are dozens of formulas out there, but this is how I did it: ...

I really enjoyed reading through Cathy Nichols ' new book Storytelling Art Studio , published by North Light Books .  I love the way she has organized the book, and I also love that her artwork is very very different from mine.  That way, I'm not as likely to fall into the mistake of copying so much as just thinking about how I can use her techniques in my own work. Cathy's chapters build one upon another, but you can also skip around in order to simply try out the ideas that strike your fancy.  In order, the chapters cover creating characters, setting the scene, altering the mood, adding conflict, expanding the plot, adding a moral, storytelling with symbolism, repeating a motif, and titling your piece.  Each chapter has a step by step demo if you'd like to work through a similar piece. One of the most helpful features, I think, is the broad variety of backgrounds that Cathy teaches throughout the projects.  She shows you, through the demonstrations, how...

Time Passages Cyndi Lavin, 2017 Prints for sale This three paintings were all variations on a theme, as I think you can easily tell!  The backgrounds started out as gesso pulls over top of toned underpaintings.  Using the darkest one as an example, it went like this: 1. Paint concentric rings of gesso with White in the middle, gray around that, and Black around the outside. 2. Use a gray mixed gesso to pull Phthalo blue and Phthalo green down the length of the page.  Adjust the colors and allow to dry. 3. Mist lightly and drip black India ink from a pipette . 4. Add "leaves" with a large craggy brush.  I used Pyrrole orang e and Permanent violet , both plain and mixed with white gesso. 5. Splatter with a mix of Hansa yellow light and white gesso. This post contains affiliate links Copyright 2017 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. The tutorial only may be printed out for perso...

Scars+Stripes Cyndi Lavin, 2017 This piece evolved from an earlier version that didn't quite work out the way I wanted.  Many times that happens, that pieces don't look like what I had envisioned, but this one just plain failed!  But still, pieces were salvageable, and I was really happy with the way it eventually came together. I started with a piece of brushed steel tape on paper.  After sanding it, I added 2 thin layers of Gold iridescent acrylic paint with 30% gloss medium .  This was sealed in by a layer of pure gloss medium and left to dry.  I then mixed some glazes to shift the gold color: Permanent green light and Quinacridone crimson , both in 1:1 mixtures with glazing medium .  This is rubbed onto the gold background very thinly with a soft cloth and allowed to dry. To this background, I added black tar gel designs (a few drops of black ink added to tar gel), and when that was dry (overnight), I flooded it with a muddy mix of Gol...

Eureka Cyndi Lavin, 2017 Prints for sale I wanted to try another brightly colored painting similar to Breaking Free from a few weeks ago.  This time, instead of the batik technique for a background, I decided to use a rubbing alcohol technique.  It only works well on water-diluted acrylics, so save your glazing medium for another time! 1. I used three layers of paint, each one splashed or flicked with alcohol while still wet: Quinacridone magenta , then Hansa yellow light , and finally a muddy mix of Quinacridone magenta , Interference gold , and Iridescent gold .  As a final touch, I spritzed the whole thing with additional Quinacridone magenta .  The entire piece was covered with a coat of gloss medium .  When it was dry, I added the paper and tape masks.  2. I used a small foam roller with Titan buff mixed with a bit of gloss medium .   3. When that layer was dry and the masks were removed, I mixed Cobalt t...

The Rift Cyndi Lavin, 2017 I usually am a pretty happy person, content with my life and grateful for my friends, family, and what I've got.  This past half year has been difficult though, for many of us.  I don't care what side of the "aisle" you are on, I have witnessed enough division and nastiness to last me the rest of my life.  So what do I do?  I pray, I serve my community, and I make stuff.  What do you do? The background for The Rift has 3 layers: Interference blue with a dot of Ultramarine blue , plus water Interference blue with water Gloss medium Let each layer dry before adding the next.  I added a thin strip of blue painter's tape across the upper third. The next layer of paint was slightly diluted Micaceous iron oxide .  I removed the tape and quickly wiped a thick streak off with a sponge.  I added waxed paper (crinkled) to the upper third and plastic wrap to the bottom two thirds.  This was heated and then ...

Spring Blows In Cyndi Lavin, 2017 Sometimes (often), the thing you plan is not what ends up happening.  My plan was to try the swipe technique with acrylics mixed with silicone, so that I would end up with beautiful colored cells popping up through white paint.  The swipe turned out to be a complete failure.  I don't know why...others had worked wonderfully, some with even the very same colors.  But the trick is not to let a failure stop you from moving forward! I poured acrylic paints that had been prepared with pouring medium and silicone oil.  Now that I look at this shot again, I think part of the problem may have been that the paint was just not poured thickly enough. I swiped in an arch with white paint, but the few cells that formed were ragged.  So I continued swiping until the paint was smeared together and covering the whole piece.  I adjusted the colors and sprayed it with a bit more silicone to allow the colors to slide aro...

Wisteria Cyndi Lavin, 2017 I don't have any step-out photos to show for this piece, but it is so easy, you really don't need any!  It's just a simple, joyful piece that you can make anytime you're between projects and want something fun to fill an hour or two. 1. Use polymer medium to apply wrinkled white tissue paper to a piece of watercolor paper . 2. Sponge on a background color if you like. 3. Lightly mist the paper and use a razor blade to add black ink lines from the top.  Let it dry and spray with fixative before proceeding. 4. Use your gloved fingers to make the blossoms, starting with the largest and moving to the smallest.  Add a bit of white to the larger blossoms to give some shading. Here are the colors I used: Hansa yellow light (background) Phthalo blue , Dioxazine purple , Quinacricone magenta , and Titanium white - all mixed in various combinations This post contains affiliate links: Dick Blick Copyright 2017 Cyndi Lavin. ...

North Light Books has a beautiful new volume out that was edited by Jamie Markle.  It's huge, and has the initial appearance of a coffee table book, but I couldn't possibly bring myself to call it that after I started reading and gazing my way through it.   Art Journey - Abstract Painting asks the featured artists to answer many probing questions that all of us probably have: what is the essence of abstract painting?  How much planning do you do?  What is your inspiration?  Let's look at how their answers broke down! When asked about the essence of abstract painting, some artists explained that their work is totally non-representational.  Some spoke of emotions, experiences, and their own inner world.  Others focused on the elements of design like color, space, line, and texture.  But a large group of artists spoke more about "abstracted reality," with objects seen in a different way, fantasy "landscapes" or "still lifes," unrecogn...

Moon Dance Cyndi Lavin, 2017 Prints for sale I was still stuck on the same sort of somber palette when I went to paint Moon Dance, but I did want to make sure that it had enough variety in value since all the colors turned out very low key.  Here's how I checked that: Isn't Photoshop a wonderful tool??? Moon Dance started out as a double gesso background ( black gesso , followed by dilute white gesso , and heated under a layer of plastic wrap).  On top of that, I added a Hansa yellow light stripe. I pulled some grayed acrylic paints top and bottom using a slightly darker mix of gray gesso. The colors I used were Medium magenta , Ultramarine blue , and Pyrrole orange .   No matter what I tried, I just couldn't get excited about it, until it finally occurred to me to flip it.  To this, I added some black ink razor lines and some white ink lines, drying in between so that not everything would be gray!   This post contains affi...

Valley of the Shadow Cyndi Lavin, 2017 I painted Valley of the Shadow a few weeks ago, before the weather turned a bit nicer here in New England.  It's not that my mood was exactly down... :-) Anyway, I used white gesso tinted with Ultramarine blue and a drop of black gesso to pull streaks of Dioxazine purple and Ultramarine blue in two distinct sections.  I added razor lines of black ink and adjusted the colors as needed. I used a foam brush on the sky with white gesso , Cerulean blue , and a few drops of Interference blue .  I used a very scraggly stiff brush to add white gesso and white ink along the "peaks". This post contains affiliate links: Dick Blick   Copyright 2017 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. The tutorial only may be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

I wanted to spend a little time trying several different masking methods, just for my own amusement, and also so that I'd have some samples on hand to help me make decisions on future projects.  I decided on a design, some simple birch trees, and three methods I wanted to test. From left to right, these are the methods: 1. Wet paper, add paint and salt, add foam-core shapes, weigh them down and allow to dry. 2. Wet paper, add painter's tape shapes, add paint and salt, allow to dry. 3. Leave paper dry, add painter's tape shapes, add paint and salt, allow to dry. Method 3, shown above, leaves you with the crispest lines.  I added the shadow and bark markings.  But I actually liked Method 1, shown below, best overall for it's unpredictability.  Method 2, not shown, was ok, but the trees turned out very dark as the tape on top of wet paper drew in and held the color. All three methods are useful, depending upon your desires.  I would suggest doing ...