Scratch art - Eye Pop style!

I love this technique! I recently used it on a big old 16" vinyl record that I did for a solo art show (The Big Mandala Show) which I have up this month at Seven Planet in downtown Portland.

SGRAFITTO

Sgrafitto is a technique where you scratch through one layer of paint to produce a drawing in the layer of paint beneath it. I learned about this when teaching elementary school art classes (using crayons) and have always been intrigued by the concept. I even showed my son how to do it on his wall!
Ha ha.

So here' s how I did the record.

First (after priming the record) I used a pencil to just basically scribble all over it and make a lot of overlapping, criss-crossing lines, just dividing it up into as many shapes as possible. You don't have to really think about this. The idea is NOT to make a pretty design, because no one is going to see this. The idea is just to get lots of different colors on there. You could just splotch it on.

Mine turned out kind of cool. It was sad to paint over it, and I almost just left it like that! A black outline would have made it really rad. But, I was determined to sgraffito it, so I did.

Now, if I had some black latex house paint on hand, that would have been ideal. It doesn't dry so fast so it would have given me more time to do a good job. But, I didn't have any, and I wanted to use materials on hand instead of going out and buying new stuff. So I used black acrylic paint which I mixed with LOTS of stuff to try to slow down the drying, including Slo-Dri Blending Gel and Glazing Liquid. Both of these products help extend the drying time, and this is really important.

I found that it dried really quickly anyway, so it was a bit of a challenge. And you know what? I loved that challenge. It was fun and exciting to be forced to work quickly!

Luckily, I planned to work in small sections. If I'd painted the whole thing black all at once, it would have been a nightmare. Instead, I just started in the center and slapped on a small circle of blackness.
I've designed many a mandala in my life, and only about once or twice have I ever actually had any sort of design in mind before starting. I had no plan for this one either, so I just had to get started and see what would happen. I used the eraser end of a pencil to scratch through the wet black paint, drawing a simple flower with five petals.

Well, I wasn't very happy with the pencil eraser, so I switched to an un-bent paperclip. This worked very nicely and gave me good crisp lines that weren't too thick or too thin.

While I was working, I realized that I didn't like my original flower design in the center, so I painted right over it with more black paint and started over.

Once I'd made the nucleus of the mandala, I then added another layer of paint around the circumference of the first one, and continued scratching into that paint and turning the record to continue the mandala pattern.


I just kept adding on to it until I reached the outer edge.

As I got closer to finishing, the paint became more difficult to work with. It was drying so quickly that I had to draw my designs insanely fast. This definitely made the finished product different from my usual intense precision and perfectionism!
But, I did have three different people tell me it was their favorite piece at the show. That made me happy.

Here's what it looked like when it was done and dry:

I'll post a few more pictures of the Big Mandalas and the Big Mandala Show soon!

Mixing Colors - Part One: PINK

As I often do, I turned to the Pantone website for color inspiration when I needed to come up with some new pieces to take to the recent Recycled Arts Festival.

I was hoping to find some good bright colors for summer, and I was thrilled to discover the Independent-ism palette. "With its tart, bold and gregarious colors, Independent-ism is geared toward creative artisans who are unafraid of true originality." Perfect!

So I decided to share the process by which I come up with my own creative version of these colors. It is by no means scientific. It is probably weird. What can I say, I am totally self-taught, and I can only use the materials I have at hand. With a mixture of good quality acrylic paints plus a bunch of inexpensive craft paints, I've been able to duplicate these colors pretty well, I think, although I don't know what Payne's gray is for and have never learned the correct way to mix colors. And I am by no means claiming that these colors are the equivalent of the Pantone system! Heavens no. This is just my personal take inspired by this fresh and fabulous palette. So, if you are interested in my DIY approach, I am planning to share it in a series of posts documenting the creation of the eight new Mandala Record Bowl designs I've made for Summer 2009.

Starting with...Pink!

Here is my finished product:

Well, it's not really all that complicated. To make this shade of pink, I used (roughly!) 3 parts Permanent Rose (Winsor & Newton) to one part each Titanium White (Liquitex), Medium Magenta (Golden), Quinacridone Red (Golden), and "Pretty Pink" (a fairly obnoxious Ceramcoat brand craft paint).

I printed the Pantone color palette out on my inkjet. The colors come out much truer on glossy paper, and the only glossy stock I had was some CD Labels (hence the random printing):

I basically started mixing colors and lining them up against the chart until I was satisfied. I started at the right side of the square and worked toward the left - so the color you see on the far left was my final mix.

And so I painted my record!





And that is the story of Pink.

The Carnation Pink Mandala Record Bowl is now available in my Etsy shop - please click here to check it out.

Last night's Vinyl Killers show

Here's me and Chuck standing in front of the mandalas I contributed to the Vinyl Killers International Show of Painted Records last night. It was held at the Goodfoot which is a cool bar in SE Portland. It was so amazing to see the walls totally covered with more than 200 painted records from all over the world. Unfortunately it was really dark in there so it was hard to get any good pictures with my camera.
A couple of other local artists who participated were Chris Haberman and Beth Myrick. Check them out, they do very cool work.