WARM Cave Painting Update: The Elephant

The WARM (Women's Art Resources of Minnesota) Mentor-Protege Show is coming in October, and, having had two years to conceive and to work on this piece, a progress report is in order.

Materials review  This project consists of five 5x2' primed aluminum panels covered with tinted gesso to create cave texture.The Elephant panel is the last of the five panels to get paint. Last night, I mixed a gray from acrylic colors (black, white, gray, and silver) and some Golden Self-Leveling Clear Gel. Miraculously, I have leftover paint. 

Your eyes do not deceive you. The Elephant's ear is, indeed, purple. To some leftover Elephant Gray, I added a purple acrylic and Golden Granular Gel Medium.

Making the drawing My original plan was to scan my tiny elephant painting into Photoshop, scale it up, and print each segment to make a 5-foot template. Much tape would have been needed to create the template. I am grateful to my friend, the elegant artist Jason Najarak, for showing me how to use a projector to get the image onto the panel.

The Elephant Drawing

The Painted Elephant

The other panels (owls, parrots, cats, and toucans) are in-progress.

Show notes: The show, Beyond the Surface, will run from October 3 to 31 at the Grain Belt  Bottling House, 79 13th Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN  55413. The opening reception is October 18, and there will be artists' talks on October 9, 11, and 30.  The schedule and more details TBA.

Lost Cave Paintings of Saint Paul for the WARM Mentor-Protege Show

Women's Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM)'s Mentor-Protege Show is fast approaching. I have plotted and planned for months, and finally have taken gesso in hand to begin.

The Plan

THE PROJECT 

The project will be an installation of an excavation of some of the Lost Cave Paintings of Saint Paul. I began making these paintings in 2012 after watching Paul Boecher demonstrate using gesso* on board at the Northstar Water Media Society's Art-on-a-Line. A piece of his gesso-on-paper looked like fresco, and my mind went immediately to "cave wall."

Since mid-2012, I've made more than 150 large and small cave paintings, and dozens of "friends of the cave" Pandas who inhabit the Hidden Bamboo Forest of Saint Paul.

* A Word About Gesso: In the modern era, gesso is an acrylic medium as thick as Greek yogurt that artists use to make surfaces either smooth or bumpy. I make textured cave walls with white gesso that I tint with watercolors for small works or acrylic paints for large ones. Historic gesso was made with rabbit skin glue and minerals. I am glad to be a 21st century artist who can skip boiling rabbits and simply buy gesso at Wet Paint or at Dick Blick.

The Flamingo's Last Outing:
Northern Spark at the Vine Arts Center

MEET THE FLAMINGO 

This 5-foot flamingo has lived in my downstairs bathroom for more than 15 years. I took the paper design to a lumber yard where the staff kindly (without laughing) cut out the bird, made a dozen sets of book ends, and 20 8-inch rounds from the plywood that I purchased.

Flamingo with Magenta-
Tinted Gesso

In the original plan for the bird, I would have covered the body with beads, mosaic-tiled the legs, and created a stained-glass-shard-mosaic for the grass and weeds. Fortunately, it was a flexible plan, and I was very happy with some-beads-and-paint. All of the other flamingo pieces in the bathroom miss their Big Birdy Buddy.

The flamingo's body is now covered with tinted pink gesso, and the weeds are covered with weed-colored-and-textured gesso.

THE CAVE WALLS 

The five aluminum boards (cut and primed with great skill by Jason Najarak), are now a taupe/gray that is a mixture of white gesso and an astonishing amount of acrylic paint. I used sepia, chrome yellow, chrome orange, phalo blue, violet, metallic bronze and gold, venetian red and probably a few more. Each panel is slightly different from the others.

NEXT STEPS

1. Create the templates for the creatures. I have gone into my archive for my favorite images. The original elephant works well on a 5"x7" tiny painting. Making him into a 20"x40"paper template will use all of my cut and paste skills.

2. Paint the creatures, including the dozens of frogs and hummingbirds which will be part of the continuity for the panels.

3. Print and install the maps for the back of the piece. Because this will be free-standing in the middle of the room, it can't have an unsightly "naked" back. I will cover it with maps of Old Saint Paul made from electronic files from the the Ramsey County Historical Society Library in the basement of the Landmark Center in downtown Saint Paul.

4.  Print the "Visit Very Old Saint Paul" postcards for the postcard rack.

Nanoscapes' magnets: for learning, for fun or for money?

In my third year of image-a-day painting, I use these daily exercises to explore new patterns and designs, new materials, and new techniques.

Gels and TerraSkin since June 2013

Since June 2013, I've been gleefully exploring Golden Brand Gel Mediums (glass bead gel, tar gel, self-leveling clear gel, mica gel, black mica gel, fiber paste, and molding paste). Combined with TerraSkin, the tree-free paper that opened the door to Hummingbirds (and Friends) in Hyperspace, I've been on a three-month wild art ride.

Hummingbird in Hyperspace
on TerraSkin

Next up: magnets

Armed with 2x2-inch primed aluminum squares (thank you Jason Najarak), round magnets from Michael's (thank you, Layl McDill), a glue stick, some leftover Mod Podge and Golden gels, I expected to whip up some magnets to sell at the Saint Paul Art Crawl.

Not so fast.

Every good thing has a learning curve.

Making the cuts

What I'd imagined to be a great use for leftover watercolors or cut-up greeting cards, turns out to be an exercise in painstakingly careful cutting to match the aluminum squares. Not just snip-snip-snip and done, but not-unpleasant-but-not-very-fast cutting and matching, reminiscent of quilting.

Finding the right glue.

As much as I love a good glue stick, even my favorite archival stick was not a good match for this project. Call in the acrylic team (Mod Podge and gels), spread the glue, match the corners, press the paper to remove the glue ooze. Wait for the glue to dry.

Glaze the top and sides

Luckily for me, one of my prime artist directives is Painstaking Exuberance, loosely defined as relishing work in tiny spaces with tiny tools. Even Self-Leveling Clear Gel can't be troweled onto a tiny square so I used wooden skewers as applicators. I had also hoped to put glass bead gel inside some of the tiny shapes, but that will add an extra step. Maybe someday.

Glue the magnet to the back

Separating the round magnets from one another isn't as easy as I thought it would be. That, of course, is the reason that they are called "Magnets." Use a skewer to spread the glue on the tiny magnet. Carefully remove the glue that oozes out. Wait. Wait some more.

For learning, for fun or for money?

I've only made three of these, and I can't put a "price-per-hour" on them at the moment. I've learned a lot, so perhaps I will charge myself my hourly art-teacher rate and imagine that I've taken a class.

Jason Najarak's Amazing Mural: watch the timelapse video

Fog Swans

Jason Najarak, Founder of the School of Primal Realism, is one of my treasured mentors, and we are all lucky to be able to watch him create a mural for The Guild, Inc., an organization that supports integrated services for the mentally ill.

Fog Swans, at left, is one of my favorites of Jason's paintings. Part of his genius is that he can create magical spaces and magical creatures that appear real.