clear coat and silver thread

I got lots done yesterday. I am really getting very excited about this project! I was actually quite proud of how much I'd accomplished. I cut down the dowels. This was mostly impressive because I found a hand saw, and I wasn't sure I'd even be able to locate a hand saw. I was ahead of the game before I started! Yay, me!

So dowels were cut and resanded and given a couple of coats of clear coat. And, yes, I did it outside. Although it was breezy and I did inhale some of it and it was a weird feeling to feel like the inside of my mouth and lungs were clear coated. Plus, it made my coffee taste sorta gross afterwards. A couple of coats, more sanding, a couple more coats. On the last coat a huge wind blew all sorts of tree pollen into the wet sticky clear coat. *sigh* So instead of being done with that part, I am now going to need to resand the dowels to sand the pollen out of it. And then more clear coats are in store.

I also put another wash layer down on the drawings because I wanted them to be darker. I really am glad I went with black ink instead of a color. I didn't want to have any kind of gender perception built into the piece because I used a particular color. And after writing I am beautiful a zillion times over, I'm extra happy with the black and white choice because it reminds me of writing lessons on chalkboards. And after writing that last bit, I've gotten started on my artist statement!

I did some practice sewing to see how I liked the look of it. Decided that black thread was maybe too dark, after all, and then went out to JoAnn where I spent a good 10 minutes debating which grey was best. Turns out silver is what I was looking for.

And in between waiting for things to dry, I got started on the landscape based in part on the 4x6 Exchange painting, which is based on the ink drawing, which is based on a friend's photo. Just a little bit. It's 16"x20".

it's pretty much a wash

Still working on the ink pieces for the You Are Beautiful installation.  I decided my wash was too light and gave them a second coat. No pics because, really, it looks the same. Scroll down to the last post, and you've pretty much got it. The second layer of writing went on far quicker than I expected it to, considering the tiny little nib I was using. (Note: tiny little nibs are really sharp. I dropped a pen yesterday and it went right through my sneaker and stabbed me in the toe.) Usually the second layer is ink writing but I was only planning two layers for these and so I used mask. Almost done with those. I just gave the second layer a second wash, because, again, it's still really light. At some point yesterday I decided there would be more than two layers to these. I'm up to four, I usually do about 8. We'll see.

After the 4th layer's wash.

It's still going to need more layers to darken it up, overall.



In between drying time, I got to work on a little piece for the 4x6 Exchange for the Brooklyn Art Library. The Brooklyn Art Library does lots of cool projects and I've worked on several before: The Fiction Project, The Things I Dream About, and Mail Me Something... For the 4x6 Exchange, each participant is creating a 2-D piece of work that is, not surprisingly, 4"x6". Everybody mails them to Brooklyn, and then they are getting swapped. So someone somewhere will have my painting and I will get something by someone else. The postmark is due at the end of the month, so I need to get on this. This piece is based on a sketch I did of a photo a friend took and it's acrylic on watercolor paper. I'm looking to do a larger piece, 16"x20", so this is kind of the sketch for that later piece. I already had the canvas drawn out when I saw the photo and it's quite similar, so I will eventually be combining them.