Experiment with Mineral Paper

 That's right! Mineral paper. Paper made from rocks. No trees were cut down to manufacture this paper. That's cool. 

Oil based mediums can't be used on this paper but everything else can be.  

I used Pan Pastels to create this portrait of my sweet Renard.

While the portrait is fun, and my hand isn't up to its strength, the number of layers I could add was limited. I stopped when I began to see pastels rubbed away. Watercolor paper and pastel papers are my preference for this medium. Now, if I was going to create a pastel study, this paper would be perfect for me.

Next up was the same portrait using watercolor. I began with wet on wet and continued with wet on dry ended with pen and ink. 

While this image is fun, it's not as good as it would gave been on hotpress watercolor paper. I wasn't able to create clean hard edges I could normally create. Paint was too easily moved around and washed away. For simpler watercolor images I believe I would have done better and probably using dry on wet would have more successful. My aim is to use more water not less. I think creating abstract shapes would be fun, as with the area beneath my muse. It seems similar to work I did with acrylic inks.

I'll be trying acrylic inks and pens on this paper sometime in the future but, I won't be using it for watercolor or pastels. 

Click on my watercolor image to watch my YouTube video of this project. 

Here is a link to a YouTube video from the manufacturers of this paper, Yasutomo.

The illusive best medium

I've recently changed my blog description to "..follow me on my search for the illusive best medium." because I realized that I have been chasing that Best Medium for me all of my life. It's been a long life. 

I started scribbling on old cards and photos with a pencil, moved on to crayons and chalk and colored pencils and finally paints. All kinds of paints. I studied weaving and printmaking and scuplting and ceramics but my best place was two dimensional art. 

I don't have any of my early art. It was all tossed by me and my mother. My first painting experience was paint by numbers and with those paints I painted this double portrait of my mother's dog, Cookie. He was a Gemini, like me, so I painted him as twins. I have no canvas so I used a piece of thick paper I had laying around. My mother framed it and it hung in her living room for years.

The color is wild. I knew nothing about color theory although I had the blue/orange contrasting colors down pat.  The image was drawn freehand.  I was very good at drawing. Even better than I am today. I was 17.

These are life drawings I drew during my freshman year intro to drawing class. I was 18. A simple graphite pencil drawing on newsprint. Fifty three years later, rolled up and kept out of the sunlight, they are still in pretty good condition. 

Most of the work I did was in graphite. I dropped out of college and went to a medical school (not college) to become a lab technician. Moved to Florida; ended up doing office work and moved back to New Jersey.  It was several years before I seriously studied art again, I was in my thirties. But I lacked confidence in my ability to support myself with my art so I went to library school where I found a way to support myself, help people and use my creative side.  But still; I just want to be a full-time artist. Now, I'm a caregiver, a part-time librarian and a part-time artist. Art is my passion and my sanity. My one regret is that I gave up on myself and didn't pursue visual art in my teens. I wonder how much better I would be today; what avenues I would  have pursued; how the energy of other your creative minds would have spurred me on. 

I've always been good with technology. Not genius good but good, better than many so using software to create composition and cameras and editing software to create YouTube videos was my next step to share my art. There's certainly a learning curve but I've picked up a lot in the past 3 years. I sell a bit here and there; sometimes folks learn something from my videos; sometimes I learn something from other people's videos. To see what I've been doing for the past 3 years just go to my YouTube channel:www.youtube.com/@joanmansson .

If any of this post sounds like a pity party please know that it's not meant to. I'm an artist. A painter, a draftsman. Whether I'm a great artist or a mediocre artist, I'm an artist in search of my own Best Medium and I'm determined to find it. In the meantime, I'm having a great time. A zen time. An exciting time. 

 

Making the most of applicator sponges in my Pan Pastel painting

This lovely Pan Pastel Painting of a Papillion is the subject of my latest YouTube Video. Just click on the image above to watch it. The video is just over 1 hour long. 

These are the tools (sponges, applicators and Pan Pastels) that I used to create this portrait. I've found that using them makes my work freer and isn't as taxing on my fingers. I've dealt with arthritis for years but when Covid came along and knocked me out, after brainfog lifted, I found that I just couldn't paint the way I used to. Some how, my hands, my fingers, particularly my right hand, my dominant hand, is weaker; tires more easily.  I have been testing applicator tools and my Pan Pastels since this medium is the easiest for me to use and found that the triangular sponge offers me the greatest range of use. Most of this painting was done using triangular sponges and the background was done with egg shaped sponges. They're just lots of fun. 

I'm no longer worried about realism in my work. Well, of course she looks like a Papillion and of course she's lovely and the painting is fun. But, I'm not concerned with making the fur look real. It's enough for me that you know it's fur. It's enough for me that there's a glint in her eye and a smile on her face. Extra details, fine details, aren't necessary.