Parson's Daughter Studio - Penny Crocker Wasmund

Homemade Paper Portraits

2011-01-23T10:36:00.003-08:00

I was introduced, a few years back, to paper-making with the Arnold Grummer paper-making kit. It's an easy way to get into making your own paper and my kids loved helping me use old papers, 'inclusions' and such, to create new pieces of paper.

Always a student of 'faces', and also mixed media collage, I wanted to learn to incorporate these handmade papers into my art. I began making some into portraits and others, I would collage or create a mosaic-type background and then paint over top (sailboats).

The Arnold Grummer folks bought a couple, used others to travel to trade shows one year and even commissioned me to do a portrait of their dad (THE Arnold Grummer! lol).

I've moved into other areas of art such as postels, watercolors, folk art mixed media pieces, but still enjoy those pieces of paper I've stock-piled with everything visable in them from dictionary definitions to phone numbers to novels (yes, you can see some of these inclusion book pages in my papers when you look closely)

Where'd the Year Go?

2010-12-09T07:36:00.008-08:00

I've actually been busier than my blog suggests, but I'm better at "doing" than "documenting".

I still manage to find time for some art outside of the many hours of owning and running a coffee shop, but not as much as I'd like. I take my sketchbooks and work on things at the shop that I can do easily, such as pencil drawings, pastels or colored pencils. It's hard to cart all of the multitude of papers, fragments and doo dads (not to mention paints) that I use for my collage pieces.

This year, I have done a number of commissions in my whimsical folk art style. I take pictures of family, pets, etc., and create a layered mixed media collage with inclusions that pertain to their interests, hobbies, etc.

BUTTERFLY DRESS

My daughter saw this beautiful butterfly dress in an ad on Facebook and asked if I could make something similar for her for her Halloween Dance at school. I had seen the dress before as well and thought it beautiful.

Well, with no pattern and a limited budget, I bought inexpensive black muslin and got to work. I cut 2 pieces for each "wing", sewed them right sides together, then turned them so there would be smooth edges with no hem and the extra fabric would give it some body. Then I painted the sections white so the colors would be more bright and vibrant on the black.

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Colors were added and blended...(acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium)

I used a side zipper, made a skirt of tulle underneath and sewed a fuzzy trim around the top. It turned out cute and with her striped tights and ankle boots, it was so PEGGY!

2010 Art I've been working on...

2010-03-10T06:06:00.005-08:00

I'm going to try to make 2010 a new year for blogging and be more consistent with it. It was always a pain to hook up laptop to scanner, scan, upload, re-size, upload to blogger, etc. However, now I have a Mac and can just take pics with the webcam and post them to blogger...so much easier. The quality isn't as good as a scan, but it's good enough to give an idea about what I'm working on.

Often, I will create a "character" on watercolor paper and paint it in, then cut it out and use it in a collage later on. This young lady is one that I'm planning to use down the road. The great thing is that I can do these while at the coffee shop during the slower periods

A not-quite-finished piece I'm doing for a collaged background I've already completed. Trying to decide whether I have the room and want to us all three or just 2 of the girls. On these types of pieces, I usually cut out the painted image and adhere to the collage, then when dry, I seal with a beeswax layer which softens the entire piece.

A watercolor piece I am currently working on. It's not yet the likeness I need it to be, but it's practice.

Practice Illustration for Book Character....and a fairy

2008-11-20T17:35:00.009-08:00

I've been working on illustrations for a children's book character I have in mind. The styles and faces are vastly different as I audition different things to see what I like best.

I colored in some with watercolors to see how they would look finished.

I drew the Violet character from Steve Breen's book, "Violet, the Pilot", to get a feel for a different style. I love Steve's book and illustrations and discovered that he's an award winning political cartoonist. His charactures of politicians and events are wonderful and hilarious! What an amazing artist! His caracter, Violet, is the one on the top half of the page.

I needed to practice drawing noses and am working on profiles...something I've not done and badly need practice with...

My character eats cereal in the morning...I'm not sure if this is the image I'll use...I just wanted to practice making her look a little dishevelled with "morning hair".

These were actually inspired by photos of my little girl when she was younger...

...and a fairy. I'm not really a fairy person, but got a book for my daughter and couldn't help trying one of the illustrations in it.

Artwork Over the Past Few Months

2008-11-20T07:13:00.007-08:00

Left: A drawing I did from photo (right) from the WetCanvas site. He has such an interesting face, it was fun to do!

Trying to fit in art time in my studio has been a tough thing this year. I bought a coffee shop the first of the year after a stressful legal battle with the previous owner/partner and a mismanaged franchise. The result has been a fresh new atmosphere, both physically (new decor) and emotionally (a fun and relaxed atmosphere for me and my employees).

The downside has been the vast number of hours required to start and run a small business, made even more challenging by the current economy. I do find times to do some art, they are just not always in my studio. I often take my journal to the shop and find a little time over the slower periods of the day to draw.

(Above)This is a face I drew out of my head.

I used watercolor pencils and watercolor brush pen.

This piece was inspired by the story of "The Princess and the Pea" when I took part in the '08 Summer production of "Once Upon a
Mattress". The princess arrived from the swamp and climbed the castle wall in her haste to meet the Prince! She turned out a little sexy here... don't know that that was what I was going for.... lol!

This is a little sketch I did of a local boy, James, who lost his battle with cancer. I got the photo from the blog his mother keeps.

I was waiting for my daughter, Peggy, at a theatre rehearsal one day with nothing but my journal and an ink pen. No one around and no photo references, so I began this little folk-art piece out of my head, using cross-hatching pen strokes for shading...something I've not done before.

Tiny Canvas piece

2008-02-05T19:38:00.001-08:00

"Mother & Daughter" 5x7 canvas board (Mixed Media: collage, acrylic paint, old text)

I painted this one day when I began to wonder when my daughter would stop wanting to hold my hand, sit on my lap or cuddle with me... it was sad to contemplate and some of that meloncholy came out in the mother's expression here, I think.

Art Journal work of "Bannister"

2008-02-05T19:31:00.000-08:00

This is a drawing that I did of a band named Bannister that played at my coffee shop recently. I later added watercolor and some pastels.

If I didn't work in my journal every day or two, I wouldn't be doing much "art" lately... it keeps me trying new things and keeping my feet wet at a time where my business is commanding so much of my time and attention. But meeting and listening to performers like these neat young men is one of the perks of my job, for sure!

Quick Nose Sketches

2007-12-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, so while in bed about to crash, I got out my sketch pad and all I had was an ink pen, so I did a couple of quick sketches... I'll just use the excuse of being very tired and ready for bed.... Still good practice for me, even though sloppy and quick....

A Little Break from Noses

2007-12-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

I took a little break from noses to do some quick sketches. Anita Davies turned me onto these through her blog (see links to artists' blogs) at the posemaniacs site. They give you a figure to draw and it's only there for 30 seconds. No time to stress about details. It's an exercise to engage the right side of the brain to tune out details and draw shapes....or something like that. Anyway, it's a great exercise that I'll continue (just won't post them here...too many in too short a time).

Day 6 The Noses of "Scrubs"

2007-12-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

Scrubs is the funniest show on TV for me and I love the characters. And feeling this way, the logical next step for a true fan is...

...you guessed it! DRAWING THEIR NOSES! I'm sure they'll get ahold of this blog and be offering me commissions to draw more of their noses.

While I'm sure noses have "personality", it's not the defining trademark of most people, and for women in television, since they all have to be traditionally "pretty", there aren't a lot a variations on theirs... one looks far too much like the next.

John McGinleys is the most interesting nose, and I had a hard time stopping at the nose (as you can see) as I wanted to keep going. His is just an interesting face with lots of lines and shadows.

All of these were drawn with the Pilot Razor pen.

30 Days of Noses - Day 5

2007-12-01T05:42:00.000-08:00

Day 5

I wanted to try a water-soluable ink pen,
so I pulled out a Pilot Razor Point (felt tip?) and
the first nose at top was me trying to figure out
how this pen works and how it would react to water.

The second nose is from a picture of my dad as a teen,
and then I tried a couple of celebrities like Tom Selleck
and Jimmy Durante (one is known for his nose and
the other is...well... I just love lookin' at him! Yep,
that Jimmy was the stuff that sweet dreams are made of...)

30 Days of Noses - Day 4

2007-12-01T04:36:00.000-08:00

Day 4

Softer, pencil drawings like these don't render well when scanning, but these will at least be evidence to Sherie (http://papermoon-phthalo.blogspot.com/ )that I'm not falling down on the challenge (she'll harrass me mercilessly otherwise! lol)

The pencil sketch on the right is actually my nose... I was looking up into a mirror, so more nostril-action that I think is attractive... The other is from a picture of my daughter when she was little...the width was too wide, but the colored pencils I used (that I found in an old, old stash at my mom's) just would not erase. Maybe I'll go ahead and use pen for one and see how that goes.

Speaking of pen, you have to see what this guy does with just a bic pen a white art pencil: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9qJ8gKk6V8c

30 Days of Noses - #3

2007-11-28T13:42:00.001-08:00

Day 3

Today I used drawing pencil and watercolor pencils (used dry) to create the shadows. Maybe tomorrow I'll tackle a self-nose-portrait (now THAT'LL takes guts!)

30 Days of Noses - Day 1 - 2

2007-11-28T06:26:00.000-08:00

"Thirty Days of Noses"

My good friend and fab artist, Sherie Griffith, (http://papermoon-phthalo.blogspot.com/ ) we spending an art day together and were talking about a fellow artist's blog (Anita Davies) whom we know from the Everyday Matters (yahoo) group. Her artwork is incredible and she has spent 30 days drawing different parts of the body to get proficient and it has paid off for her.

Sherie and I decided we would do this together to help each other stay accountable to creating art every day in some fashion. Sherie wanted to start with noses, so here are my first 2 days of noses. The hardest part of this 30-challenge will be scanning and updating my blog... (my weakest area, I'm afaid)...

2007-11-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

Art Journaling

This is my new love/learning method/therapy. I'm using a wire bound journal with cardstock weight pages. Sometime I scribble some thoughts first, then Gesso or paint over them to begin forming a collage, not so much to go with the words as just to go with my mood of the day... Sometime I focus on certain colors, or collage a bunch of pieces of paper that have been left on my table from other collage projects. It's fun to give myself a little challenge to use certain things.

I like to try out different styles and mediums of art, and it's fun to just play and give myself permission to make a mess and call it "art" if I want. This has been some of my best-spent time in my studio lately, freeing up my creative "muse" and I love the feel of the book as it gets filled up. This journal started out with glueing pictures and words on pages to convey feelings and thought, but now it's more collage and paint and I've entered a folk art/whimsical period that I'm really enjoying. (These two pages face each other in my journal).

I loved this little red-haired gal. This page (actually 2-page spread) started with a huge, painted mouth on a red background with the words "lips" stencilled at the bottom. I began collaging papers and paint over it, leaving some exposed areas and then worked on this little figure over top of everything else. She's a favorite.

The page on left began as a collage on "fashion" and ended up with a perplexed looking figure and I think that's my view toward being "fashionable". I'd rather buy art supplies!

Right: I collaged a scene on a painted background, added some stamping, printed tissue, sticker butterfly wings and a pic of myself when I was cute... I mean "young".

This one started out as a travel theme as I was really wanting to get away from it all. When I was finished, I was reminded of Anne of Green Gables. It has collaged papers and some painted Gesso over top and I've made swirls and loops through the Gesso while wet for added "texture" and interest.

I'll post more later and show you a page in progress and how it looks at different stages. This one at right is a page I Gessoed over and began again and got to this point. Since this photo was taken, I've painted in the figure a bit. I'll post an update later.

That's what is fun about art journaling...there are no rules. You can go back and change anything you don't like or just re-work something because you feel like it. On this one I added a dress, some color to the figure and an angel standing behind and over her with her arms wrapped around here, bringing peace... Come back later to see the updated version.

Now, go create in your own journal... use whatever book you have and cheap craft store paints. Doesn't have to be fancy, just a little paint or other medium of choice, some glue and pens... go have fun and please write and share a link to your journal if you have one...

2006 - early 2007

2007-09-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

Okay...this is terrible and why I've always had a love/hate relationship with Diaries and Journals. It's been almost a year since my last post. It's not that I haven't done anything, but with ownership of a coffeeshop in my life now and another love/hate relationship, this time with my scanner, it just wasn't a great year for sharing my artventures.

So, here's my shot at redemption. I'll post some things I've done this last year. They won't be in order because my memory ain't that good any more and my documentation skills are in even worse shape than my memory.

Now...where was I? Oh yeah, some sketches, finished pieces and my ever-so-enlightening commentary along the way. How's that? .........

This is Walker... our neighbor whom Peggy & I babysat several times, but who is moving to Texas.. a sweet boy we'll miss!

I've done some quick sketches...lots of marks and movements. These are hard for me as they require me to let go and lose the desire for "picture-perfect", and to just learn from the exercise itself...not aim for a finished product.

This is my daughter, Peggy...

This is Meryl, singing at the coffeeshop...it's hard for me to draw folks who are moving..just not that good yet.

This is a famous hockey player (I think)...he was on the cover of my son's Hockey magazine. An exercise in loose sketching.

I wanted to do a loose Dizzy & his trumpet sketch from memory, just to get the outline and stance...

Some facial studies...

Another of Peggy from a photo.

A good resource for working on faces is a Mary Kay catalog:

Magazine photos... I didn't finish the one on the left... just couldn't seem to "get" her, so I got frustrated and stopped.

This is an abstract portrait of my dad... it's framed and hanging in my Dining Room... he was a colorful character, so this style fit his image well..

UPSIDE DOWN:

To release my mind from what I think a face is "supposed" to look like, I tried this exercise of turning the photo upside and drawing it upside down. Both the woman and Luke Wilson were drawn upside down. They're not perfect, but a decent likeness.

LEFT - My niece, Amy, though the eyes aren't really her....actually, only the hair may be really "her".

RIGHT - This is another niece and her dog, Bella... a pretty good likeness of her, I think.

TODAY - I did this sketch from a portrait in a magazine

2007-02-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

This is the finished portrait of my grandmother that I gave my mom (pictured here) for Christmas '06. She told me later that she has really enjoyed it and thought I did a great job capturing her. High praise, indeed, so I'm tickled..

Now to just make time for continuing to work on my skills. Having recently started a part-time job in addition to homeschooling and try to sell a house (i.e. cleaning more often than I normally would! lol), I'm finding it hard to carve out time. If the family could manage to stay well more than a week or two at a time, that might help as well. I know there are always "seasons" for things, and the house will sell and I will eventually have an even better "studio" area in which to create (hopefully!), so for now I'll just "hang on" and sketch and create where I can.

These "cartoon" portraits were an idea I had that I wanted to try. They are my kids and they are now hanging in my husband's office at work. It was fun to do something light and colorful and reminiscent of my coloring book days.

Art in the Carolinas

2006-11-15T05:43:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I attended a couple of classes at the Art of the Carolinas event in Raleigh, NC. I went to this last year and learned so much that it's what I asked for this year for my birthday. I took another class with Betsy Dillard Stroud who marries watercolors, acrylics, stamps and washi papers to create abstract portraits that have so much punch and personality, not to mention vibrant colors. It was similar to the class I took with her last year, but watching her create a painting in 3 hours was invaluable as I could see her and hear what she was thinking as she chose colors and pattern and the loose style she uses is just fun to watch!

The other class I took was a class on creating charming children's portaits in pastels. I loved this class...it was all new to me as I had never worked in pastels. This is the portrait we did in class:

When I came home, I began a portait of my grandmother, below.
Showing age on a portait, wheather a young child or an older adult, is a tricky thing and I have much to learn. This is the beginning stages, but it's not quite "her" yet, so there's more to do:

The next day, I took a picture of my 16 yr old when he was about 4 and did a portait. I have some finish work to do and need to work out a couple of areas, but am happy with it so far. I went and bought a small pack of pastel "pencils" to help me get fine line details around eyes and mouths. These are smaller than 11x14, so when I graduate up to a larger "canvas", it won't be has hard to get those fine lines, but with this size, I was having a hard time getting the edge of a pastel stick to give me what I needed. I bought a couple of different types of pastels while at the show and am having to learn how they work with one another. I thought I was getting hard pastels at the Holbein booth, but got them home and they were soft. (Note to self: READ!!!!!) My friend, Sherie, says she really likes the soft, so I just need to learn to use them...we used mostly the hard in our class last weekend. Oh, the teacher's name was Luana Luconi-Winner from Raleigh. She was a great teacher and taught us some "short cuts" that help teach values and light on the subject.

AFTER (Self Portrait)

2006-09-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

The finished piece. I used watercolor pencils, then acrylic paints to create the image. It has been cut out and layered onto a canvas panel that was painted and collaged. Two vintage buttons and a whimsical wire with beads from my grandmother's old jewelry creates a fun way to hang this self-portrait from my 4th grade school picture.

2006-03-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, but I've managed to get in some sketching time while out and about. I have a hard time with challenges because drawing "things" doesn't excite me like drawing faces...however, it IS easier to get a mantelpiece to stay still while you draw it than a person you're sketching in a coffee shop... trying not to stare...willing them to turn back in the direction they were in when you BEGAN the sketch... lol! But it does make me work on drawing quickly. I'm getting more comfortable using my pen for sketching... first time I heard someone say to do that I thought they were nuts! How do I fix the mistakes? But these are not pieces that will hang in a gallery...they're teaching projects and I'm learning a lot from each one.

Now I just need to learn to take my camera everywhere so I can get a snapshot of things I want to spend more time on than a quick sketch.

This first piece is a drawing I began, taken from my 4th grade school picture. Drawing in ink is scary and in this case I messed up one side of the lips so stopped until I could fix it; then I'll finish the rest of the coloring.

Seeing my need to work on lips. I began a page of just different lips and ended with a sketch of a model.

This next sketch was done for a EDM challenge on "HATS"... not a great hat...just one from a magazine.

A drawing of a woman... not much like the subject I took it from, so I have a lot of work to do...

I was killing time in Starbucks yesterday (prefer Port City Java, but it wasn't nearby) and did a couple of sketches of two gentlemen who were there...

They took off before I could get his friend drawn properly...

When I showed these to Paul (my son), he asked me to do one of him... I sketched this with pen in about 10 minutes and added the color later during his hockey practice...

Recent Sketches

2006-03-10T17:25:00.000-08:00

I've been drawing more lately, trying to make myself do even some fast sketches. Posting to a blog is a new (and scary) thing for me, so hopefully I can overcome my fears and put it out there.

This is a sketch of a friend's granddaughter. No sketch can do her total justice...she's just a doll!

This next sketch is of my daughter at her dance recital. It didn't scan well, but the scan did show me that my values were not consistent... too dark on top and too light on bottom.

SELF-PORTRAIT CHALLENGE

This is a quick sketch I did while my kids played at a park... I had only a bic ink pen with me, so that's what I used... scary! But it does rather look like me... I think...

I am drawn to faces... I want to learn to create them in every medium... I've been playing around with acrylics and a more abstract style of portraits that I learned in a class from Betsy Dillard Stroud.

Here is a sample:

March 6, 2006

2006-03-06T14:46:00.000-08:00

Okay... I'm officially entering the world of BLOGGING! Needing a forum to share ongoing art attempts with friends, this seemed the perfect medium. More to come....