Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Working in different mediums

When I was in college (Siena Heights University - then college) the professors said "pick a medium and stick to it".

In college I did a little clay - all hand building, never was interested in throwing - drawing, painting - was not good at that, printmaking - silk screen printing, linoleum block printing, and others printmaking techniques. 

So when I got out of school I choose drawing, which I did exclusively for 20 years. 

This was probably a good thing since good drawing is the basis of all the mediums I work in now.

Then I decided to add some color to my drawings
art by Jan Francoeur

- then started working with watercolors


- acrylics


- oils


- painting on clay with underglazes


- hand building, and 


- calligraphy.





My artistic life is so much more interesting now!

So every day now I wake up and say - what will I work in today? Well it's not that easy, I usually have commissions to do, with the medium dictated by the customer.

Yesterday I finished a drawing of a house, it was a companion piece to a house drawing I did years ago. I can't show it here because it's a surprise. As is a platter I'm doing today.

The work I do on clay combines 4 things, I often make the piece, draw the image, paint on it (like watercolors but with glazes), and do calligraphy on it. 

Tomorrow I'll be painting in watercolor on traditional watercolor paper, also a commission - to go with a door painting I did about 10 years ago.

And here is a painting I'm almost finished with on hot press illustration board - this one I did because I wanted to!







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