Lipstick as paint?

Here are some paintings I played with today - emphasis on pushing 'pinks' to the limits.

~9" x 12", old lipstick tubes used like oil sticks to paint in stripes with black and white Gelato, graphite, color pencils, and watercolor crayons. Just playing & experimenting on cheap paper, folks (found that the lipstick actual dries! especially if you rub it into the paper fibers).

6" x 12" mixed media paper, acrylic paint, graphite, watercolor crayon. 

6" x 12" mixed media paper, old lipstick, acrylic paint, crayons, graphite and color pencils, black Gelato stick.

Some art work to talk about

Time to put myself out there. Work from this summer 2016.

Texture. Writing. Torn paper (linen printing paper). Playing with positive and negative space.

Texture. Lines. Words as lines and marks. Watercolor patches.

Semi-transparent paper collage over writing, watercolor.

The full version of the first photo close-up detail of the top left corner.

I like making these. They are small. May be interesting to only me. Thoughts anyone?

What do I use to mix media?

Mixed media. Everything and the kitchen sink? Maybe. How do we decide what to use and what not to use? Less is more? But what is IN the final art work?

I make a more or less conscious decision about what few things I will work with after get into my studio, turn on the music, move around a little, pick up this and that, feel it, and basically wait until something strikes me as THE thing to work with.

I want to use this blog to talk about the process - my process - of making mixed media art. To hold out some of my work for public scrutiny. I am not a professional artist, though, I have ambitions to get my work into the hands of people I don't know through galleries, online shops, etc. I am not new to making art, nor am I a young person. I do not have an art degree, but I have taken several art courses and attended workshops and art retreats in various locations. I work full time at a large organization (ok...a large university); so, my art work happens weekends and evenings--sometimes early morning before I head off to work. My work has been hung in art shows, some after competitive judging. Not often over the past 50+ years. I'd like to change that.

My hope for this blog is that it turns into a conversation between you and me. I know there are others who can relate to where I am, how I am thinking, what I am doing and not doing. I'd like to get our passions, fears, playful acts, out in the open. Please join me on this mixed-media conversation journey.

Thanks for stopping by.

Eileen