Art Journaling at the Speed of Life

September 30, 2017 By pamcarriker in art, art at the speed of life, art journal, art journaling, mixed media, pam carriker Tags: art, art at the speed of life, art journaling, derivan, jerrys artarama, mixed media, pam carriker, stampington, stencil girl products 12 Comments

I just wanted to share some art journaling goodness with you all:-) I was thrilled to get my contributor copy of Art Journaling magazine and find me work on the cove! It totally caught me by surprise. As most of you know, I love art journaling and it’s my go to vehicle to teach workshops. They are such a valuable tool for any artist.

Cover Art September 2017

Click on image to order

Here’s the full page spread. I love this color palette of Nightfall, Celedon, and Rain from my line of paints with Derivan Matisse. The stencils used here are my designs with Stencil Girl Products.

I hope you are finding time to explore your own journals~

Color Shaper Journal Painting

May 10, 2015 By pamcarriker in art at the speed of life, art every day, art journal, art journaling Tags: art at the speed of life, Asaro's head, Colour Shaper, fluid matt sheer acrylics, jerrys artarama, pam carriker 7 Comments

I was messing around in my journal a couple of days ago and wanting to play a little differently I grabbed my Colour Shaper tools to paint this portrait without using brushes. Several people have asked about both the Colour Shapers and the method so I did another quick journal page in my Extra Large Moleskine Sketchbook (11.5 x 16.75″) and took some step out pictures to show the process.

Most important I think to using the Colour Shapers in this way is not to get bogged down by details, stay loose and go with the marks that they make!

The Colour Shapers are some of my favorite art tools and I keep them handy by my work table on my Raskog cart from IKEA.

Here are the sizes I like, and note that they come in both firm and soft tips and it’s good to have both as they will work differently with the paint.

I’m using my Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics in Mustard Seed, Barely Black and White Washed. You can see that these are very fluid and also carry a high pigment load. You can try any acrylic paint and you will get various results depending on the viscosity of the paint.

I love this color palette as the Mustard Seed and Barely Black mixed together make a really warm gray color.

My model is my Asaro’s Head. This is such a wonderful tool for seeing how light hits on the different planes of the face. Here I just sketched the actual head, but you can use it to also sketch a more realistic face and get some great references to where shading and highlights should go.

Using the larger 1″ and 2″ Colour Shapers, I start to block in the dark areas. Note all of the cool marks the tools leave in the paint-I don’t try to avoid them, this adds to the overall look.

As I work I wipe off the tool onto the background to start that off. By adding small amounts of White Washed to the gray mix I get various tones of color that I add the planes of the head. Switch to smaller tools as needed.

You can also wipe a bit of each of the tones you mix on the page somewhere to help document them. I do this a lot in my journal work.

(and yes, that’s a glass of wine in the background-keeps you loose while you paint😉

Remember to stop! I am not at all going for some finely detailed painting, I want it raw, so remembering to stop is important. In all this took less than hour from sketch to finished painting. Now I’m going to let it dry and then add some journaling to the page. This is a fun journal exercise to help you loosen up and play with shading and tonal values.

My Favorite Paint Tools

September 27, 2014 By pamcarriker in art, art at the speed of life Tags: acrylic ink, color wheel, derivan matisse, fluid matt sheer acrylics, jerrys artarama, mini mister, montana marker, pam carriker, ranger, stencil 12 Comments

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite tools that I use my Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics and Acrylic Inks with.

First off, when using a new paint for the first time, I always like to do a a color wheel and or swatch test. This allows me to see the color full strength and what it looks like washed out.

Here is a color wheel and swatch test for my Acrylic Inks, using a Montana Marker.

I love these markers! They come in a variety of marker tips and you can get them empty to refill yourself. I’ve yet to have one dry up on me using my Acrylic Inks! You do have to remember to cap them though because as with any marker it would dry up left uncapped. They also have a mixing ball in them perfect for mixing the heavy pigment load in these inks with the binders.

These are Mini Misters by Ranger and I love them with my Acrylic Inks as well. I especially love that you can get these nifty ‘stadium seating’ type caddies for them that hold all of my colors in them. I bought an extra caddy for my Montana Markers (above) too! This keeps them on my work table with easy access.

I’m using my Stencil Girl Color Wheel Stencil and I always have a little Pocket Color Wheel guide around to help with mixing and color combinations.

The porcelain palette has 12 wells that can hold each of my colors of Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics. It’s important to have a palette with wells for them as they are very fluid.

Most of you that have taken past workshops from me or read my books know how I love to use Bingo Daubers with paint in them. I’ve been doing this since I taught pre school 20 years ago! These daubers are from Rock Art and are by far my favorite ones. They never clog up with my paints and believe me they have been put through major testing in workshops! For several years I mixed my own paints with the recipe I share in my book Creating Art at the Speed of Life, and it’s so excited to have my new paints available that were based off of that recipe and in my custom color palette. I spent several weeks mixing colors to get just the right ones to use in my line. My biggest goal was that the paint colors played well together and these really do.

For those who’ve taken my workshops this past year and had a chance to play with these paints and inks first hand, you know that my go to color is Mustard Seed. It honestly goes with every other color on my palette! So if you’re looking to try out my line I would suggest getting one or two of your favorite colors and Mustard Seed. This will give you some gorgeous color play.

These journal page backgrounds were done on hot press watercolor paper prepped with gesso, using Stencil Girl stencils and my inks.

From upper left to right:

Nightfall-Mustard Seed

Turquoise-Mustard Seed

Rain-Mustard Seed

Turquoise-Mustard Seed-Golden Rod

Celedon-Turquoise-Mustard Seed

Royal Purple-Mustard Seed

Nightfall-Mustard Seed

Magenta-Poppy-Mustard Seed

Now Available for Pre Order!

September 25, 2014 By pamcarriker in art at the speed of life Tags: acrylic, art, art journaling, color wheel, derivan, ink, jerrys artarama, matisse, mixed media, paint, pam carriker 10 Comments

I’m so very excited to share that my NEW line of Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics and Acrylic Artist Inks are now available for Pre Order!!!

The first shipment of product is on its way so pre-order to be sure to get it as soon as it arrives!!

Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics allow you to play with watercolor techniques using a permanent matt acrylic paint. These highly pigmented, lightfast, sheer matt colors allow you to see all the layers underneath and are perfect for working on watercolor paper, in art journals, layering over collage, with watercolor painting techniques and more. Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics are lightfast, permanent and are available in 12 signature Pam Carriker Palette colors along with black and white.

Journal Page using Fluid Matt Sheer Acrylics

Acrylic Artist Inks are acrylic based inks that come in intense, heavily pigmented colors for use in many applicators – perfect for calligraphy, pen & wash, technical drawing, airbrushing, dripping, and washes. These inks work well for filling spray bottles and in refillable marker type tools. (Montana brand works great!)

These inks are washable in water while wet, making cleanup quick and easy. Brushes, pens and airbrushes clean easily in water. They come in a tip resistant bottle with a dropper tip to make filling tools and direct application easy. They need to be shaken before use and they have a stainless steel ball in the bottle to help with mixing. Acrylic Artist Inks are lightfast, permanent and are available in 12 signature Pam Carriker Palette colors along with black and white.

Journal Page using Acrylic Artist Inks on background

And you can also get my other mixed-media products at Jerry’s

Pam Carriker’s Mixed Media Adhesive

A quality adhesive is vital to Mixed Media Artists, and Pam Carriker’s Signature Mixed Media Adhesive (MMA) will help you achieve results you can’t with traditional collage glues. Non-sticky and extremely matte in both feel and appearance, MMA makes it possible to use any other media over it with no tell-tale line where the adhesive ends. MMA is so matte that even delicate watercolor applications, pencil sketches, and fine art pens can be used right over the top of it. Worries about paper wrinkles or bubbles disappear as MMA handles even tissue paper with ease and keeps Art Journal pages from sticking together. Try MMA today and feel the difference!

Journal Pages created using collage and watercolor techniques with MMA

Pam Carriker’s Liquid Pencil Sketching Ink

NOW AVAILABLE HERE

With Derivan Liquid Pencil you can get graphite in your art without apencil in your hand! Pam Carriker’s signature line of Liquid Pencil Sketching Ink is nothing less than an entirely new medium—a graphite ink that’s easy to use in myriad mixed media techniques. It comes in a handy squeeze bottle with a special tip usable for direct application or to refill regular ink tools. Available in both Permanent and Rewettable formulas for a wide range of techniques, Sketching Ink can be used to ink rubber stamps, as a dip pen ink, or as paint. The Rewettable formula can be manipulated using traditional drawing tools like erasers, blending stumps, or even wet brushes, and the Permanent formula can even be burnished to a lovely sheen. Put those boring pencils away and discover a whole new way to get the look of graphite in your art with Pam Carriker’s Sketching Ink!

Created using the Rewettable formula to ink one of my rubber stamps and blended out with a blending stump and kneaded eraser

Mixed media application with Sketching Ink and Acrylics

Analogous Colors at Play

September 11, 2014 By pamcarriker in art at the speed of life, art journaling Tags: acrylic inks, art, art at the speed of life, copying pencil, jerrys artarama, journal, mixed media, pam carriker, stencil girl products, tutorial 15 Comments

Today I had time to play with lesson 3 from my book. Analogous colors are so fun to play with in a messy way because you can’t make mud with them! They just keep blending and making beautiful color.

I first spritzed my page spread with water so I could work wet on wet. (Check out my messy table from yesterday’s print making session!)

Then I used Mini Misters (Ranger) to spray some of my acrylic inks onto the page. These will be available soon at Jerrys Artarama! They are great for backgrounds because they’re acrylic and when dry, permanent!! No bleed through. I’m using a non stick teflon sheet to mask off most of the page.

These pics show the progression as I work my way up the page from the bottom. I chose to use 6 colors. Remember analogous colors are side by side on the color wheel.

Next I laid a stencil on top (Stencil Girl Products) and then used paper towels to blot off the excess ink. I used 3 different stencils to create an interesting background.

I added a color wheel using one of my stencils (Stencil Girl Products) to show the colors I used on the background. Then using a Copying Pencil (these have indelible ink in them and turn a lovely turquoise color when you wet them) and sketched a face. I used the Copying Pencil to stay with my color palette and not overwhelm the page.

I activated the pencil with a wet brush.

Next I used white and black China Markers to add a little pop to the face with highlights and shadows.

I used the Copying Pencil to add some journaling and my page spread is complete. I really like that the image doesn’t overwhelm the page, or cover the background. I may work a bit more on this but I’m done for now.

Art at the Speed of Life™

thoughts, tips, and inspiration for living an art-FULL life

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