Pastel – Jessica Singerman

Making Thank You Drawings

January 20, 2019January 20, 2019Being an artist, Drawing, Ink, painting, Pastel, Process, thoughts..., Why I paint

Around the holiday season, I make a series of small works on paper to send to collectors of my paintings as a way of saying thank you. This time-lapse film documents the process of making the mixed media drawings I sent this year. If you look carefully, you’ll notice that I started working on light blue paper, but eventually switched to a white paper. The blue paper felt too flimsy, so I used a heavier-weight watercolor paper instead. You’ll also notice in the upper left corner when I cut the new watercolor paper. I think my favorite part of the video is seeing all the tools move around as I used them.

This was shot over the course of two days, with a photo once every 10 seconds. I used watercolor, graphite, ink, wax pastels, colored pencil, and gouache (opaque watercolor). Enjoy!

The unglamourous part of making art

September 22, 2017February 11, 2019Collage, Drawing, Gouache, Ink, painting, Pastel, Process, thoughts..., watercolor

Behind the scenes this week…

I’ve been using torn bits of my drawings as collage material in my new mixed media pieces. After brushing the back of the paper with acrylic gel medium and placing the paper where I want it, I flatten it with a piece of wood and weigh it down with something heavy – in this case, gallon paint cans. I typically let it sit overnight so that it’s ready to go in the morning. Once dry, I can work on the paper and panel with paint, ink, pastel, or whatever other medium I choose to use on it. With these particular pieces I am not using oil paint. This allows me to keep the paper exposed because I don’t have to prime the paper to protect it from the oil paint.

Weighing down the freshly glued collage bits on panels so they dry overnight. In the morning they’ll be ready to work some more into them. #notglamourous #studiolife #instaartist #artistsoninstagram #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #abstract #abstractart #collage

A post shared by Jessica Singerman (@jessicasingerman) on Sep 20, 2017 at 6:58pm PDT

New house, new studio

September 12, 2017February 11, 2019Collage, Drawing, Gouache, Ink, painting, Pastel, Process, thoughts..., watercolor

I haven’t blogged in a while. We bought a house this spring/summer, have been settling in, and getting the studio (in my case) and darkroom (in Tim’s case) going. The studio feels good. We insulated it, put up homasote, and I recently prepared a bunch of new panels to work on a series. I’m working on mixed media collage pieces using some drawings I made last week. Mix of Sumi ink, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, pastel, graphite, and markers. I’m trying to keep the works on panel pared down – which is hard for me because I have a tendency to want to bury layers of paint and drawing and build up the surface. We’ll see what happens…

Good morning from the studio! I’m working on the middle row of paintings and using the drawings from the top and right side as material for the collage bits. Really enjoying working on the panels. #wip #landscape #abstractart #abstractdrawing #abstractpainting #abstraction #contemporaryart #contemporarydrawing #contemporarypainting #collage #interiordesign #mixedmedia #instaartist #artistsoninstagram #fineart

A post shared by Jessica Singerman (@jessicasingerman) on Sep 12, 2017 at 4:14am PDT

2017, Day 1

January 1, 2017January 1, 2017Collage, Daily Project, Drawing, Ink, painting, Pastel, watercolor

First day of the new year, and I’m experimenting with collage and pastels in addition to watercolor for the daily project. For my 2016 daily project, I limited myself to ink drawings or watercolor and graphite paintings. For 2017 I’m allowing myself to use collage and wax pastels as well. I’ve been wanting to incorporate collage into my work for a while to deal with contrast and edges differently than I have in the past. We’ll see where it goes.