Frequently used Materials in the Studio & Artist who Inspire me Right Now

I get a lot of questions about what medium I use on pretty much all my pieces so I’ve put together as much as I could think of and a little bit about my process. Lately I’ve also been thinking about how I’d like to share some of the artist I truly have admired for a while and inspire me, always. I hope you find this helpful, or at least interesting.

Wise ‘Ol Owl // 2019

Wise ‘Ol Owl // 2019

Any of my owl, bird, or abstract paintings I primarily use Dr. Ph. Martin's liquid watercolor, Golden fluid acrylic and Golden heavy body acrylic paints. My go to colors are Paynes Gray and Burnt Sienna for the fluid backgrounds with a lot of water, applied with a spray bottle I get from Home Depot but you can get them anywhere (the amount of water depends on the boldness and contrast you're trying to accomplish) this process takes a lot of experimentation with substrate and mixing mediums. I don't use paint brushes for the background, I find that a silicone 'wedge' is the easiest to attain the expression and movement I hope to capture. The subject of each piece (owl, bird, etc.) is usually base painted with heavy body paint and as I get closer to the top layers I go with the fluid acrylic. Mixing mediums is a really fun part of developing your style.

With my 'traditional collages' I use basically any sort of thing I can cut out, from magazines, old seed packages, fabric and books, so many options here. One of my newest editions to my collages is working with acetate. It's been a challenge to figure out how to glue that as it's clear but I usually just adhere it with an old fashion Elmers glue stickgel medium or spray adhesive. My process with collage (as with any piece, really) is taking in account the composition, color and subject. Weird is something I strive for but I’m noticing it is more interesting and sometimes odd? You can make that call.

Lifetimes

Lifetimes

My digital collages take on a life of their own, honestly. I started creating these in a very deep creative rut in 2018. I’m happy I did because they’re probably one of my favorites to create. These I create from pieces I find on unsplash, pexels, Creative Market and pieces of my own artwork. And I use Adobe photoshop, illustrator and (I actually develop these in) inDesign. A lot of artist and designers I know that I reveal this to find it surprising and maybe odd that I don’t develop them in photoshop? I just feel like indesign is very intuitive, for me, to move quickly as my creative flow rolls in.


And now to the exciting part, my artist inspirations….

Taylor Cox, I cannot not mention Taylor. She has given me so many priceless techniques and has guided me on my art as business path for almost 3 years now. Her art is fun, joyful and breathtaking. She is across the board talented. And an amazing friend.

Hannah is someone I recently discovered on instagram through a friend from college (Adam who is an unbelievable photographer) and she creates these fun doodles with funny, vulnerable words. Also, I can’t fail to mention her signature dance makes me, literally, laugh out loud.

Kristina Corre. Damn. her work takes my breath away. She is the artist that inspired my 100 days of paper this year. In my mind, I compare her visual art to what Nayyirah waheed does with words.

Kristen Meyer Her work is unique in that it satisfies my visual craving for structure and texture. The things she uses to create her work is very clever and creative. I actually heard about her through a mutual artist friend, Kelly Clark who blows my mind with her work, too.

Don’t worry, I’ll do this frequently and it doesn’t mean I don’t love every. single. artist out there.

xoxoxo