Gloria J Zucaro's "Lately"

Today I have some paintings that I have done in the time I have been absent. Posting to Paint Party Friday where you can see many beautiful projects done by artists around the world. Hosted,"thank you!" by Kristine and Eva, for our benefit.  
The following paintings are from the Joan Fullerton workshop I took at Mainstreet Art Center in Lake Zurich, IL the first weekend in November.  Joan was excellent at making new territory so much fun!  I am normally not a very intuitive or an abstract thinker.  But she gave us some guidelines that could be applied anywhere on our paper or canvas.  

This was done with acrylic paint, silver leaf that I stained with blue paint, a tree stencil in the sky area with clear gel that made a neat texture when dry.

Acrylic paint-black and buff, gesso,text magazine pieces, stencils, pen marks, music score.  We all used our own materials but were to use only black and white paint.   

This one has a theme of linking land masses with bridges to that say we are all connected.

This one has layers of paper and stencils.  I used a mask of a crow photo to expose what I had covered with the paint.  I then added the tree stencil.

This was the first one we did.  It is acrylics on watercolor paper.

I think I need to do some more work on this one.  But it reminds me of tornadoes, so maybe I will develop that with a landscape and an angry sky?

Below are some pictures I took at The Pearl District in San Antonio, TX while visiting my mother.  This is part of a beautiful hotel that has been done in a refurbished factory.  I love the sort of steam-punk feel!

Have a great week! 

 Happy PPF.

"Anselm Kiefer Abstract and Jodi Ohl Birds"

Tonight I have a couple of different projects. 

My first two photos are of practice birds  that were a homework assignment to do in my journal given in Jodi Ohl's "Dirty Flirty Birds" workshop. I can see a lot more practice is needed to make the birds come alive. I have a story going on but the birds are just OK.

"Secrets"


Eagle,Fly the Flag

The second project is the Anselm Kiefer project inspired by Nathalie Kalbach for Creative Jumpstart 2016. She did an abstract and attached organic elements to it. I started with black gesso, then put on crackle medium. When that dried, I added dryer lint for the bird, ink in black and white, a touch of burnt sienna acrylic paint over the crackle, some red paint mixed with gel medium and some aqua ink mixed with white gesso, then I added two ball bearings to the aqua "pools". I wrote in German, because Kiefer usually wrote something, my words meaning "Go fast, fly away!"

"Wegfliegen Schnell"

Have a great day,

Gloria :>) happy PPF!

Linking to Paint Party Friday.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Second Sides"

Today I have done the base on the second side of my Carolyn Dube Permission to Play Cardboard Journal pages.
I used Carolyn's "Sparks of Inspiration" as well as cut-outs from old "The New Yorker" calendar pages for 2015.  There is gesso underneath, then a layer of Heavy Gel Medium by Golden, the cut-outs, then a layer of gel medium over the top.

Have a nice weekend!
Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "Bits & Pieces"

This week I have a couple of works in progress. I started a "snow" scene in oil. I picked unusual colors after using my color wheel and doing a thumbnail sketch. I decided to paint a base coat of Alizarin Crimson, which is transparent. I started adding in the darks. After talking to Susan Ploughe, an instructor at Mainstreet Art Centre, I decided what I wanted was an abstracted landscape with a traditional base. So I am at the stage now where I will start filling in more tree limbs that will become panes for a stained glass look in between each pair of limbs. That is the hope anyway. Below are some of the steps for this painting.

Hopefully this experiment will work out!

The other work in progress is the free workshop with Carolyn Dube. It entails making a mixed media journal. First I cut out similar sized pieces from a cardboard box. Then I applied white gesso. Next we were to add pieces of text, papers, stamps, receipts or whatever we wanted. I coated most of them with Gel Medium so that when more work is done on them the paint originally applied to them won't rub off. Some of the papers are from Carolyn and are called "sparks of inspiration", some are pieces of magazines made to look like leather in a workshop with Karen Sako, some are from gelli prints I made. I got the front sides done tonight and they are drying. I still need to do all the backs. I was also supposed to paint or gesso both sides of a ribbon, but I have to look for one in my basement tomorrow!

I am linking this to Paint Party Friday hosted by Kristin and Eva. Each week they feature a new artists' work. Every medium is represented, so take a look.  Have a good week,

GLORIA

Gloria J Zucaro's "Collage on Three"

This week flew by again.  I spent my time planting perennials for next year, and watching the birds and small mammals in my yard.  A very relaxing week.

I wanted to show you some of the collage pieces done in Karen Sako's collage class.  We used Masonite boards covered with gesso, either regular white or clear.  Other supplies were magazine pages, sandpaper, baby wipes, saran wrap, crackle paste, gesso with sand added, pastels, India ink and my favorite, strips of paper applied with gel medium, and then sealed.

The Beginnings

Gesso with impressed sand, torn paper, acrylic paint, sealer

Gesso, crackle paste,torn paper, gel medium, acrylic paint, sealer.

Gesso, saran, gesso with sand, tool to add lines, acrylic paint, sealer

I am posting this to Paint Party Friday, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook.

Have a wonderful week.

Gloria

Gloria J Zucaro's "Fall Fearless Cont."

I feel God is with me every day.  All I have to do to make contact is say "Thank you, Lord!"  I often feel disasters have been averted and little miracles occur when I almost trip and fall, or a fender bender is avoided, or the pan that I forgot I was cooking in did not catch on fire when I got absorbed with something else, because of a little nudge of awareness!  I also feel the closeness to God when driving through beautiful landscapes, or looking out my window at a chipmunk(yes, I do love them!). Or watching my grandsons' face when playing, or asking me a question.

After adding the gesso in my last post to make the church window stencil, and letting it dry, I decided to highlight different raised areas with glitter paint in gold, one of the prompt colors.  I just rubbed it on with my finger.  As you can see it really highlighted Jessica Sporn's new stencil "Medieval Leaves" the most.  Since the Church Windows were not showing up very much, I outlined various areas in Black Micron pen.  I still think that needs more, so I might continue to work on that later today.  I also stenciled on some black doves.  I should have done that before all the raised areas, as the stencil couldn't make contact with the paper.  Learning lots about the process!  Thank you, too to our other hostess on Fall Fearless and Fly, Carolyn Dube