31 May 2016

rock, paper, brushes

Daily Paintings #27-30

Yesterday I mixed linseed oil and mineral spirit with ashes and chunks of charred wood from our outdoor fire pit.  I used a rock to grind the sooty ash into the oil and spirit mixture, in a small dish.  Then I dipped in my brush and made some paintings.


verna vogel painting with soot & oil

The "paint" I made was quite crude.  Someday I'd like to try making a proper batch of paint, using the right tools and processes to get really a really fine result.  If I did I'd probably follow Dave Corcoran's process for mulling paint.
In the meantime though, the rough mixture I made was fun to work with.  

verna vogel homemade paint

verna vogel soot paintings

verna vogel ash & charcoal & oil painting

A day later it's already fairly dry, and the charcoal seems fairly bound with the oily medium to the paper and canvas I worked on.  


verna vogel charcoal paint

What started this whole business of mixing ashes with medium?  A bit I read in Victoria Findlay's book about colour, the brown & black chapter in which she describes some of the dirts that artists use to make beautiful paintings.

3 comments:

PDCrumbaker said...

I love these. You'll like this woman, if you aren't already aware of her.

http://crowzenart.blogspot.com/

Barbara Muir said...

Love your post and your paintings. I've been thinking of you so intensely. I even tried an abstract with circles of my own (having saved circular pieces inspired by you). But if I get it together there are shots of NYC, I think you might like for some of your abstract work.

Very slow getting it together at the moment (wildly distracted by summer coming), but perhaps soon. ;-)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXO Love your work.
Barbara

verna said...

Thank you both so much! :)

Crowzenart is very interesting indeed, thank you for the link PD.

Barbara, I think I saw your abstract circle painting a few weeks ago posted on your blog. Not bad! Yes, summer is very distracting - in a really good way :)

xoxoxox
:)
V