Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Rusty Anchor jellyfish (wip)




Here's the orange jellyfish in process.  reverse glass with silver, aluminum, rusty egg tempera, etc.  in process.  if you click the pic you can see the grains of rust.  my friend Paul Frontiero reminds me that "rust never sleeps".  I wonder if this will develop a rust bloom.  very excited about this.  19x20".

best,
Deb

ps: this will be one of the works in progress that i will bring to the Cape Ann Museum for my demonstrations on March 31 and April 1.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Taking in the Beauty and Making Paint










Late Sunday afternoon I took a stroll across the street to check out the beauty of the anchor that greets one at Capt Joe & Sons.  My thoughts were of hope and trust.  I would not trust this anchor to hold one fast; and if used, knowing the condition of the anchor; all one could do is hope that it would hold.  Close inspection revealed the trust that barnacles placed upon this anchor, until it became dry docked.  How was the anchor made?  It clearly has iron in it as evidenced by the rust; but what is the grain?  it looks like wood.  hmmm...questions to be answered another day.

I carefully collected some rust from some of the inner surfaces where the rust dust was fine; along with a few other crumbs. I then ground  the rust into a finer dust with a mortar and pestle then, added some water  to form a stiff paste.  I then turned this into an egg tempera paint by adding an equal amount of egg yolk.  I was hoping for a nice deep orange; no dice.  I ended up with a yellow ocher that I am using in several paintings of keys and jelly fish.   I named the paint "Rusy Anchor"

best, 
Deb.


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Back to Work!

we had an engagement party for my elizabeth and her man joshua a few weeks ago.  i had to clear my workspace to make way for the bar.  krash/slide and all survived.  forgot that all of this work was stored behind/beside/beneath.   wonders never cease.  back to work, getting ready for my mini residency at The Cape Ann Museum at the end of this month.  more details to follow.  for now, bringing work to various stages of completion.  will demonstrate process, be available to chat with folk.

below are various attempts to photograph the mirrored drawings.  the reflection kept getting in the way.  i  reflected a white showerboard into the mirror, then took an offset pic.  what appears as a shadow line is the reflection of the sharpie drawing and gold egg tempera.  the box is lined with black velvet and will barely be visible when complete.