Organic Painting

Starting over the Summer, I decided to go deeper into experimenting with my two-dimensional art with natural materials. This starting with me making a few more of my coffee drawings, as seen in our shop. I also did some art journaling at the beginning of the pandemic and moved into some uses of tea and juice.

As the semester started and I have been able to get into the studio, I am also getting back into my explorations. I am painting with natural materials and anything I can find, from coffee to boiled rainbow-carrot water (The carrot water gave me a gorgeous lavender color). I started with making a bunch of test pieces of paper with splatters and sketches to see how different materials interacted with the paper and each other. My favorite new effect that I found is what alcohol does to watercolor, separating the pigment and letting me have a little more control of the color bleeding

The techniques I’m trying are mostly coming from a book I found that I’ve really enjoyed reading through called ”The Organic Painter” by Carne Griffiths. It gives instruction and suggestion on watercolor techniques as well as natural materials like teas,inks, and even painting with smoke. It was a great book for new information and inspiration. 

Going forward I hope to continue experimenting but also to finish a few pieces. I am working on drawing and sketching cities along side this practice and I hope to combine the two projects. Time has admittedly been very short since my classes have started back up. If anyone has any time management tips, please let me know. Stay tuned for our next blog post in two weeks! :) 

Thanks for reading! 

~Jess