I'm feelin' it

I absolutely LOVE textures. Anyone that knows me knows that I can't keep my hands off of a cool looking textured surface. From the time I was a little girl I was fascinated with textures in nature - tree bark, veining in leaves, bird tracks in the snow (I didn't always live in Florida), the fuzz on new spring leaf buds, the indentations of raindrops in dirt, the bubbles of tar on the side of the road in the summer.

Of course the natural progression of things is that I would end up incorporating texture into my paintings. I play with textured papers, pastes and gels, sand, glass beads and rocks. There's nothing I love more in the studio than watching the fluid acrylic paint seep into the crevices of crackle paste and puddle around the bumps of glass beads. The nuances of color as it concentrates into a smooth valley or gets absorbed into a soft paper surface is just plain exciting! Call me weird.... I don't care!

So..... for the people out there like me, Kelli and I will be teaching a workshop on playing with these textures. Since the texture gels and pastes usually take overnight to dry we're going to prepare some panels ahead of time and then focus on what to do with paint and collage elements to enhance the textures and make them sing. The workshop will be in Ocala at Red Swan Paint & Art on Sunday March 21st from 1-5. Give us a holler if you want more info and contact us soon before the class fills up. mailto:andhershbergerhuff@hotmail.com

Now go touch something and feel the texture - you don't have to tell me what it is. :D

Peace,

Carlynne

It's Large

Desert Down Under

48x48

Mixed media

Ok, we've been slackers once again, but.... only where this blog is concerned! I've been staying very busy finishing this painting for one thing. For another, I've been painting the house - more on that later, maybe with pictures. This painting is the largest I've done to date and it was a blast. I love painting larger but my house doesn't appreciate it so much, storage is getting to be a real issue. And, maneuvering around this thing on the easel was quite the trick when I was trying to get to my drawing board to work on little 5x5's for Etsy. Then add the mixed media aspect. I wanted some texture on the surface so I added some glass bead gel, not a problem until I wanted to do a layer of watery paint on top and had to lay the painting down flat. That created a domino affect when every other surface in the studio had to be cleared off to make room. Back on the easel. Work a while. Time to add gold and copper leaf. Have to work flat again. And so it went - easel to table and back again. Then try to shoot a photo, ha! No way I could shoot it in the studio like I do the smaller stuff. I took it outside, set it up, got the camera and tripod set up and the yellow jackets took offense. Thankfully me and the gear made it back inside before the stingers found bare skin. Still no picture though. I ended up in the dining room with the painting at one end and me squeezing myself between the tripod and the windowsill. Got the shot but I probably won't be doing another 48x48 any time soon.

Grand Opening!

Passage 54

In case you hadn't noticed there's a widget off to your left that says Our Etsy Store with a link. We finally set it up and now pieces like the one above are available for sale. I'm not sure just how grand this Grand Opening is since there's only 3 pieces on the shelf so far but we'll stock up soon. As the paint dries we'll be shooting and uploading so be sure to stop by periodically.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Peace,

Carlynne