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.

Gloria J Zucaro's "Going Up"

Good Morning!  It has been forever since I have posted.  I got overwhelmed by family changes, construction, illness and death.  In other words..."LIFE!"  All is more sane now, so I have posted to the site called Paint My Photo where you can find all sorts of free photographs to use in your artwork.
I used one of the photographers photos for my abstract acrylic collage piece called "Going Up?"  I was thinking of old time elevators where an attendant was the one in control of the workings of the elevator in fancy hotels and residences.
I will be posting to Paint Party Friday, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.   I took Joan Fullerton workshop last weekend and assembled my piece during her class.  What fun! Have a wonderful week,
                                                                 Gloria

140 lb. watercolor paper, acrylic high flo paint,stencils,gesso,Gelli plate papers, old text, photo transfer of suspension bridge(https://pmp-art.com/nicola-b/gallery/115775/humber-bridge)

Gloria J Zucaro's "Paula, Basquiat and Me"

Our mixed-media artist instructor with Creative Jumpstart 2016 led by Nathalie Kalbach for January 10 was Paula Phillips. She showed different methods of layering.  The one I had never tried before was to layer several colors, and put in words or areas with a white oil pastel. Cover that with a thin layer of acrylic paint.  Then use your heat gun or hair dryer to melt the oil pastel layer.  Wipe away with a baby wipe and you will see the first layers underneath.  So cool.

Paula had a "stack of books" stencil which I did not have, so I looked through my stash to see what I had that I might use.  I found a couple of text stamps, and a Tiki mask stamp.  The Tiki mask stamp just had that Basquiat "feel" to me, so I stamped it in several places and then used the design as my focal point. Basquiat also sometimes used large hands in his paintings. They reminded me of Mickey Mouse glove hands, so I added those to my stick figure body. The final and steps are below. I used acrylic paints, Sharpie markers, Golden Gesso and some stamps with a Ranger ink pad. I also drew in words, crowns and scribbles with a Scripto ink pen # 08.

text and bits of magazines, stenciled on paint, matte medium

more paint pressed on with paper towel

stamping

add oil pastel words(tomorrow, ok) and Tiki basic lines for head, add acrylic paint layer, melt off oil pastel to see underneath.

outline Tiki head and the word "tomorrow" in marker

go over page with gesso, wipe some off

Add body, hands and text.  Outline with black and white, fill in some areas with red and black marker.

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