hosted by EBSQ Self-Representing Artists and Alma Lee
Monday, August 10th at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific)
EBSQ Chat Room

King David Danced - Alma Lee

I have always loved drawing and detailing with color pencils, but until recently I had no idea of their virtually unlimited potential for PAINTING. Not only do color pencils have the same depth, and vibrancy of color, but they also have the added precision of a graphite pencil that results in a satin-like glowing finish rivaling oil.  New innovations and materials made it possible to “paint” on a variety of substrates previously off limits; including wood and MDF fiber panels. During my LIVE presentation I will be demonstrating some of the possibilities of Color Pencil, in a step-by-step visual diary of my painting process.

About the presenter:
Alma Lee with a degree in Marketing Communications studied both Fine Art and Marketing, at Stout University and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Wisconsin. Is a full time art licensor and artist living and working in Green Bay WI.

Please Make a Note of the Time by your Zone:

• Pacific 6 pm
• Mountain 7 pm
• Central 8 pm
• Eastern 9 pm
• Or look your time-zone up.

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hosted by EBSQ Self-Representing Artists and Alma Lee
Monday, August 10th at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific)
EBSQ Chat Room

King David Danced - Alma Lee

I have always loved drawing and detailing with color pencils, but until recently I had no idea of their virtually unlimited potential for PAINTING. Not only do color pencils have the same depth, and vibrancy of color, but they also have the added precision of a graphite pencil that results in a satin-like glowing finish rivaling oil.  New innovations and materials made it possible to “paint” on a variety of substrates previously off limits; including wood and MDF fiber panels. During my LIVE presentation I will be demonstrating some of the possibilities of Color Pencil, in a step-by-step visual diary of my painting process.

About the presenter:
Alma Lee with a degree in Marketing Communications studied both Fine Art and Marketing, at Stout University and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Wisconsin. Is a full time art licensor and artist living and working in Green Bay WI.

Please Make a Note of the Time by your Zone:

• Pacific 6 pm
• Mountain 7 pm
• Central 8 pm
• Eastern 9 pm
• Or look your time-zone up.

Like what you see here?  We hope you’ll consider leaving a comment or subscribing to one of our feeds. Never miss another cool post from EBSQ. Subscribe to EBSQ: Art Meets Blog v2.0 by Email today!

This demonstration was originally presented by Lauren Abrams on 22 June 2009

I’m going to show you how I make one of my split pendants. It involves using a Skinner Blend, a simple cane, and a “gem” I make out of alcohol inks and silver leaf.

The first thing you have to do when working with polymer clay is to condition it. You can do this by rolling it out with a rolling pin, kneading it with your hands, or any number of ways…but the best and easiest for me is my pasta maker…and with a motor on it it’s even easier! You just push the clay through the top and it comes out underneath at whatever thickness you’ve set it on…there are between seven and ten usually on a pasta maker. Once you’ve put it through a number of times, it’s conditioned and ready to use.

The first thing I want to demonstrate is the Skinner Blend, so called because of the person who figured it out…Judith Skinner. She made it easy to do a beautiful graduation of colors with just a few easy steps. The first one is deciding which colors you want to use, and conditioning them…I’ve done my blue, now I’m doing a white clay.

I’ve decided I don’t want a chalky white, so I’m adding a bit of translucent clay and a tiny bit of yellow..then conditioning it while mixing the colors together at the same time, using the pasta machine.

Once you’ve mixed the colors you want and have them the same thickness…you put one on top of the other, and using your tissue blade(very sharp)cut a triangle through both, so they are the same size.

Take them apart and put the longest sides together…

Squish them together a bit so they don’t come apart the first time you put them through the pasta machine…sometimes you need to overlap a bit..

Now, just fold it in half like in the picture, and put it into the pasta machine.

Catch it, fold it again THE SAME WAY… and put it through again and again…it’s most important that you always fold it the same way.

Keep doing this until you start to see a blending begin, then do it until you are happy with the blend…sometimes you can do it in five or six times, others it might take you twenty.

I’m pretty happy with this graduation so I stop.

I place the graduated color on top of another sheet of clay and trim it

I set the pasta maker thickness at number one..which is it’s thickest setting

Putting it through the pasta machine, I now have a nice big piece of graduated clay, with a solid base

Using a circle cutter, I cut out a circle on an area of the graduation that I like.

Using my tissue blade, I cut it in half

Setting that aside, I start making my cane.

Canes using polymer clay are generally made by stacking different colors and shapes of clay, then slicing it to reveal it’s pattern…once you make a cane, you can slice many pieces of it to use. This striped cane is one of the simplest to make. If you are interested, just do some research on the variety of canes people have designed in the thirty odd years since polymer clay hit the art scene. These were modelled after the millifiori (many flowers)that glass makers have been making for centuries…

I”ve decided to use three complimentary colors and different thicknesses for this cane.

I start stacking the different colors and thicknesses of clay, rubbing them down a bit in between to get rid of air bubbles.

I keep stacking until I get what I want as a pattern(you can slice the end and see how it’s going)

On this particular cane I want a repeat, so I just cut the can in half and put one half onto the other.

Slicing the end, I decide it’s what I’m looking for…and stop.

On a this backing piece of clay, I lay down a sliced and spliced together piece of cane

I line Up my two parts of the graduated blend I’ve already done and snug them up on either side of the cane slice.

Using a number 11 xacto knife, I cut out carefully around the oval that is formed by doing this and remove excess clay

I step back from the piece and decide what to do next

I’m going to make a coil of clay to border the pendant, and I want to use some of the cane in it…so I cut a couple of thin slices

I take a deep rust color clay(one of the ones I’ve used in the cane)and roll out a thing coil

Laying two of the thin slices on the coil, I roll some more to make the coil thinner and by doing that it also incorporates the cane slices into the coil

I arrange this around the pendant and press it into place

I add another sliced cane piece at the top, and start to add some small balls of the blue clay…here I’m using a brush to apply some liquid polymer clay, which will act as a glue to adhere the delicate pieces in place.

Here I am taking a ball of green clay and pressing it into a silicone rubber mold I have made

I press it into place at the bottom…

I step back and look at what I’ve done so far and decide that this is the time for my “gem”

Using a commercial cabochon mold I have, I press a piece of Premo Pearl into a round one of the right size

Then I prepare the covering, the super duper shiney thing we all love!

I lay a piece of silver leaf(aluminum) on top of a piece of pearl clay…rub it down

Using alcohol based inks, I paint some on top of the silver leaf until I like the look

Then I take some Premo translucent clay and put it through the pasta machine, making it thinner each time I put it through until it is at the thinnest setting possible….

Sorry it’s kind of hard to see but in this photo I am putting the sandwhiched clay, leaf, inks and translucent top through the pasta machine…just once or twice, depending on how much crackle you want.

Cover the piece you made with the cabochon mold with this sheet of clay…trim the excess and stretch it carefully over it and underneath a bit too.

For this one I want a bit of a base that’s a little larger than the “gem”..so I use an appropriately sized circle cutter as shown

Using a bit of liquid clay for glue, I put them together

I smush down a piece of green clay to support the “gem” and paint it with liquid clay

I press the “gem” in place

I start adding different little pieces to complete it

Into the oven it goes…at 275 for about thirty minutes. Some people like to use a dedicated toaster oven for their polymer clay. I will get around to that eventually lol..

After the piece has cooled, I coat the top of the “gem” with Futura floor covering…it gives it a great shine
66

I make a drop using the same clay and cane and add some annodized jump rings for findings

Once that is done and fired again, I add a multistrand steel necklace and voila, my split pendant!

Just wanted to show you a few different pieces so you could see what the “gems” can look like with different colored inks…

hosted by EBSQ Self-Representing Artists and Kari Tirrell
Monday, July 13th at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific)
EBSQ Chat Room

Buzz and Baby - Kari Tirrell

Soft pastels are the purest form of painting material available. They are made from pure pigment, with just enough binder to form the pigment into a usable stick. I love their brilliance and intensity of color, but it is the immediacy of soft pastels that has made them my favorite medium. During my LIVE presentation, I will demonstrate my process of painting, step-by-step from start to finish.

About the presenter:
Kari Tirrell is a self-taught artist living in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Please Make a Note of the Time by your Zone:

• Pacific 6 pm
• Mountain 7 pm
• Central 8 pm
• Eastern 9 pm
• Or look your time-zone up.

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Hello Sunshine Earrings by Vickie Millier

We’ve posted photography tutorials in the past, usually geared toward photographing 2D art. But we couldn’t resist sharing this great tutorial on photographing your 3D work, whether it’s dolls, jewelry, or other objects, found via Digital Photography School.  We know your art is awesome, so why all this fuss over how you photograph it?  Writer Natalie Norton sums up nicely:

I’ve recently spent a lot of time perusing sites like Etsy and other “small market” online vendors.  The other night I spent a considerable amount of time on Etsy searching for something very specific.  As I was sifting through the gazillions of similar products-alas, none of which ended up being exactly what I was looking for- I noticed a trend: If a product had a bad photograph, we’re talking the little thumbnail preview image here, I would not even click through to see the product details.

Natalie’s tips in a nutshell are:

• Turn of the flash
• Remove distracting elements
• Utlize Simple Staging
• Employ creative depth-of-field to highlight product detail

We strongly recommend your check out the full article at Digital Photography School.  Remember:  in the online environment, the quality of your photographs can make or break your art!

For further reading:

Image is everything: Photographing your art

Live Studio: Photography Basics

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by EBSQ Guest Author Aja Trier

Ok. Since my Quit Your Day Job article was published on the Etsy Storque I’ve had a number of inquiries on how to ship paintings from new sellers. I’m going to post this here (mostly so it’s easy to find as I get more inquiries) but maybe someone will come across it and find it to be useful

I know the shipping aspect can be intimidating at first and can seem rather daunting. I actually go back and forth between shipping through a local shipping place and doing it myself, it depends on the time I have and the size of the painting. I’ve built a repertoire with the place I ship through over the past 4 years or so and finally took the plunge a few months back and it’s helped to have someone who can wrap up and take care of the really big ones instead of me fooling and fussing with it at home. When I do it I buy frame boxes and bubble wrap from them, there’s a bunch of sizes to choose from and I buy a good amount at a time. I have an account with FedEX and USPS.com and I have them pick the packages up. The accounts were easy to set up and it’s really convenient. You can also print shipping labels through paypal – hee’s there help explanation on their site – https://www.paypal.com/helpcenter/main.jsp;jsessionid=KT0DSyptYvvv5wHXdQynbdQplDtrc4WJGzS52hfKb4G8KJQn5ppC!-685170754?locale=en_US&_dyncharset=UTF-8&countrycode=US&cmd=_help&serverInstance=9004&t=solutionTab&ft=searchTab&ps=solutionPanels&solutionId=10773&isSrch=Yes

It’s really quite simple. You do need a scale – I got mine at Walmart for 10 bucks.

Larger paintings should really go through FedEX because of the cost and the shipping “zones”. 16×20 I’d send through FedEX. 11×14 can go just fine through the postal service.

For all of my small shipments (anything up to 12×12 or so) I use the free boxes you can get through the post office. You can order some online for free – they are for Priority shipments though so if you plan on sending your paintings first class you can’t use the free boxes. I always send Priority when I use USPS because it looks more professional and is faster for the most part. Here’s a link to order free Priority boxes – http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductCategoryDisplay?catalogId=10152&storeId=10001&categoryId=13354&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=11820&top_category=11820&WT.ac=13354

The place I go to for my other boxes orders theirs from uline and sells them to me at cost. It’s good to start a relationship with a local place cause there can definitely be perks! Take a day and shop around. A really large box for me costs 16.00 – that’s for a 36×46 box, unfortunately sometimes you gotta cut um down since they don’t always have the size you need) I have heard some people go to Michaels and get their boxes on garbage day, but you have to be there at the right time – they wouldn’t hold them for me and it was like 20 miles for me so I just broke down and bought them outright. But that is an option.

When I am wrapping it myself I wrap the painting in plastic and tape it to secure moisture from compromising the painting. Then a layer of bubble wrap is tightly wrapped around and taped. Another layer of bubble wrap is then wrapped around the first, bubble to bubble, creating a “pillow” that is extremely effective in securing the painting from damage. The pillow is then placed in a sturdy mirror box for shipment with more bubble wrap or paper if needed.

Please copy and paste this URL in your browser to see how these “pillows” look just before shipment – http://tinyurl.com/5ws4ah

Note that with international shipping, to most countries the largest stretched canvas you can send is 22×28 through the postal service. The postal service has strict dimensional guidelines – length+girth (a tape measure wrapped around the middle of the box gives you the girth) can’t be any larger than 79 inches. This includes Australia, a popular shipping destination. For places with the 79 inch cut off I offer taking the painting off the stretchers and rolling it in a tube. This doesn’t always work though. I can’t do this with gallery wrapped canvas, only with canvas that has staples on the back – I can take staples out of the canvas. Can’t rip it from that groove the higher end canvases have, and I won’t cut the canvas from the stretchers. It’s best to advise your patrons of these things so they are aware. That’s why in my shop I only show US and Canadian shipping prices for larger works. Canada has a 108 inch cut off, so pieces up to 24×36 can go through USPS. Any larger and it has to be sent through FedEX or UPS – which for an international destination can be a couple hundred easy. If a patron is willing to pay the actual shipping cost then by all means. But it really is exorbitant!

It looks like a lot to take in, and initially it is – but after doing it a while you’ll become a pro and it will be second nature Best of luck!

Be sure to check out Aja’s blog at Sagittarius Gallery

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Friday, June 12
2nd Friday Art Crawl
5:00-8:00 p.m.
Olde English Garden Shoppe
115 E. Broadway, Excelsior Springs, MO 64024

North Light books artist and author Cathy Johnson will demonstrate her techniques for watercolor painting at the 2nd Friday Art Crawl in Excelsior Springs, MO.

Johnson is the author of 34 books, including 9 for North Light Books, (one of two major publishers of art books), the Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature and The Sierra Club Guide to Painting in Nature, for the Sierra Club.

She has judged art shows all over the USA, and done a number of presentations and workshops for arts associations from Maine to Nevada, as well as offered field sketching classes at statewide Nature Centers for the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Johnson spoke to the first international gathering of the Sierra Club in San Francisco in 2005 on sketching and painting in nature.

She is currently working on a revision of her 1988 book, Watercolor Tricks and Techniques, and will be demonstrating some of the techniques included in that book.

Come see some of the innovative techniques in person, at 115 E. Broadway in Excelsior Springs, Friday, June 12.

Johnson regularly shows her work at Olde English Garden Shoppe, along with Polly Jaben, PhD, photographer of scenes from Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales as well as the USA.  Jaben’s eye for the perfect shot and Johnson’s watercolors and drawings work well with the boutique’s offerings.

The 2nd Friday art crawl will include a number of other shops and galleries in downtown Excelsior Springs, including Gallery 105, Frame of Mind, the Mercantile, and others.  There will be music, wine tastings, and food–join us for an exciting evening!

Have member news you’d like to share? Drop us a line!

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EBSQ is hosting 3 online q & a sessions for potential EBSQ Juried Artist applicants. The first is tonight in the EBSQ Chat Room at 9pm EDT (6pm PDT)

Our other two q & a sessions:

Good luck everyone! Our newest Juried members will be publicly announced on 1 May 2009.

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by guest contributor Torrie Smiley

First, let me warn you~  I have had no formal computer training.   There is no computer lingo in the instructions and lots of pictures!

Listing from EBSQart.com Gallery

Upload/Edit Art Case

You can add a PayPal button through editing your item or when you initially add your item to your Art Case.

Fill in the appropriate information for your listing.  I like to include a brief description about the composition, the specifics regarding materials used, and the purchasing and shipping details.  I separate these paragraphs with the funny symbol

This tells the computer to insert a space between the paragraphs.  I also use the curly-cue at the upper left of the keyboard and stars to separate different sections of the listing.  If you notice at the end of the listing after the PayPal button, I have included an EBSQ counter so I can watch the views of the listing.

Select the tab for Merchant Services. 

Under Create Buttons in the center left column, select/click Buy Now

You are now ready to create your PayPal button!

Fill in Item name.  I enter the title of my painting and the size.  Just to the right, I enter the painting name in the Item ID box.

Now, fill in the Price for your item.

Continuing down the page……

Next, enter your Shipping.  In my listings, I use a flat shipping fee that I enter by selecting Use Specific amount.

~~Don’t be frightened by the “pop-up” shipping information, just click it off if it does not apply to you~~~ (I always click it off)

You have now completed the basic information for a PayPal button and can select the Create Button.

(There are other options on this page that don’t pertain to me…but may to you; fill out these areas if you need them included with your PayPal information.)

Here is the “code” for your PayPal button:

Select/Click on Select Code.  This will highlight all of the text in the box.  “Right click” your mouse to copy.

Now, go back to you listing in your EBSQart.com Art Case:

Select the spot on your listing (artist statement for this piece) where you would like your PayPal button to be and “right click” and “Paste”

All done…..sort of…..

On my listings, I like everything separated out to make it easier to read on smaller computer screens.

The <p> is the symbol to add a space and I do this before I paste the PayPal code and at the end of the code to set the button apart with spaces.

Save your listing, and then check out your button on “View my Profile” public view. 

To make sure everything works as expected, open the listing as if you were a buyer and click your new button. 

If you were successful with your button creation, you should arrive at a log in screen to PayPal.com with your painting information at the top.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You can now sell your art directly from your gallery.  Pay attention to your emails from PayPal.  That is how you will know you have a sale!

One final note: once you DO make that sale, make sure to remove your button from your listing, or someone could try to buy the same item again!

-Torrie Smiley

Have a useful hack for the EBSQ website? Drop us a line; we’d love to share it in our blog!

Like what you see here?  We hope you’ll consider leaving a comment or subscribing to one of our feeds. Never miss another cool post from EBSQ. Subscribe to EBSQ: Art Meets Blog v2.0 by Email today!