Messy Mixed Media Landscape

Mixed media mess... but I like it. I tried to recreate a color study I had done earlier. But the recreation lacked something. It was dull and lifeless, probably because I had a preconceived idea of what it should look like instead of painting from inspiration in the moment. So I set it aside. 

I was playing with pastels a few days later so I hit it with pastels and it started to look better. That gave me courage to keep going. 

Later, I found some scrap remains of abstract paper and glued that to the foliage. Add some raw watercolor and anything else I found and it started to look okay, But when I took a photo of it the texture and color washed out, So I hit it with some Photoshop as well. It's not what I intended, but I'm tired of looking at it and working on it so I'm declaring it finished Baahaahaa… my typical work cycle.

(BTW, the trees really are planted in a grid in real life. It's an artificial commercially planted grove with all the trees the same age and shape, not the typical random forest. I didn't capture the rhythmic pattern very well, but the one "natural" tree at the edge of the grove proves I can see and paint a gnarly tree also LOL... just so you know)

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Blue Oogoo with Chalk Pastels

Just published a new Instructable on making colored Oogoo.

What's Oogoo? Only the most fun DIY gooey semi-science project since green slime. Even better, it's useful for patching, connecting and covering just about anything. In the tutorial, I show folks how to use chalk pastels to add colors and even paint with Oogoo.

The basic idea is simple, something I learned in art school years ago. But I had never seen it used with Oogoo before,

Simply scrape off some fine powder from the edge of a stick of chalk pastel, then mix the powder to create custom colors. You can sprinkle or brush the powder onto wet acrylic paint or even polyclay.










The cool thing about Oogoo is that the pigments get embedded into the material. And if you do it correctly, they are permanent and durable.

Making colored Oogoo is simple. Just mix some cornstarch with 100% pure silicone caulking and some powdered pigments fro0m chalk pastels.

Use a stencil or embossing form and brush some pigment onto the surface, then work it in.

You can mix the pigments before or after you add them to the silicone and cornstarch

You can make colors that almost perfectly match the premade versions.

Now you can wrap tools or handlebars with durable but colorful silicone. Or make cute characters - or jewelry - or home décor. It's just silicone rubber and pigment - you can shape it into anything you want to and have fun doing it.

The tutorial has all the detailed information you need to start making your own.

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Also find me on:
 FACEBOOK -or- INSTRUCTABLES -or- YOUTUBE
Follow @tangoofthegeeks