Using aluminium foil for a palette

 

I have been using all kinds of palettes for color mixing with acrylics:

• plastic lids of yoghurt containers
• coated paper platesa 

Both are doable, but have their disadvantages: The plastic lids of the yoghurt containers are too small to mix paints adequately with a palette knife. 

The Coated paper plates suck in paint although they are coated. In addition to that once the paper plate is covered with blobs of paint you have to get rid of them. 

So I went for a third way of mixing colors on a palette: I bought aluminium foil and covered one of my paper plates with it. I fixed it on the back with a tape. Then I mixed acrylic inks and acrylic craft paints on it. I noticed that acrylic inks took a bit longer to dry which is definitely an advantage. Craft paints can be mixed without any problems using a palette knife. Yes, you have to be a bit careful with the knife and not scrape too hard, but otherwise things went well. 

Change the style of an image in Gemini

This is a diaslide I took a long time ago during a vacation in the North of Italy. When I shot the photo I felt attracted by the Renaissance architecture. I kept the slide, had it digitalized and then it sat in the depths of my hard drive.

Knowing that you can have changed the style of an image in Gemini I uploaded the image to Gemini and asked it to transform the photo into a watercolor and ink image.

Here is the result. Gemini actually changed the style. I personally would prefer it to the original.

Mixing acrylic paints with a palette knife

I have a set of plastic palette knifes which I bought years ago. I haven't used them much - whenever I tried to use them I had the impression that I was doing it the wrong way, and so I stopped. In addition to that I have been using acrylic inks mostly, and mixing them was fine whenever I used the brush to mix. 

However a few days ago I was looking at my collection of acrylic paint tubes (all kind of brands, some heavy body, some soft body, some craft paints) and thought that maybe using a palette knife for color mixing and flattening out the blob of paint could help me with doing a detailed painting even with acrylic tube paints. I watched some videos on YouTube, and then I took my heart into my hands andpa tried it myself. You can see the result in the painting above: The various shades of grey were done with mixing a grey craft paint with a white no namer by using a paöette knife. Of course I need a lot more practice, but I feel that I am on the right way.

In addition to that I tried another new thing: I added some strokes with watercolor brush pens on top of the acrylic painting. 

 

Switching from Inktense to Acrylics

Yes, I love to switch between mediums. I enjoyed painting with inktense pencils and markers, but some days ago I decided to switch over to Acrylics - acrylic inks and acrylics out of the tube.

My first step was to empty the drawer in which I am storing my acrylic inks and to put up a list of all my inks. In the end I was really surprised how many inks I have!

Then I fetched a piece of watercolor paper and taped it down to a wooden surface. I took my pencil and let the lines go wild - same as I had done in my inktense painting process. When the lines were on the paper I grabbed three acrylic ink bottles: one containing Siena, the second one containing Carmine red and the third one containing indigo. I color blocked the spaces between the lines. In addition to that I grabbed a tube with yellow ochre, one of my empty yoghurt containers and a pipette. I had always had difficulties with detailed coloring when using paint out of the tube, so I decided to thin the tube paint down with a bit of water and stir it with an old brush. It worked. Adding the black and white lines to the painting was the last step. 

Let the lines go wild!

For this painting I sat down and let my pencil run over the paper, creating a set of round lines crossing each other, drawing some S shapes and avoiding straight lines. Then I filled the spaces between the lines with color, still using my inktense pencils. In the end I used an alcohol marker to fill out the background. 

Using old Dia Slides

The origin of this image is an old color slide that was taken sometime in the 1970s, when slide photography was at the height of its popularity. Over the years, I accumulated a large collection of these slides and eventually selected a number of them to be digitized. Once the scanning was done, I stored the digital files on my hard drive, where they remained untouched for quite some time.This morning, I decided to experiment with them using AI image generators. I first uploaded the digitized slide to ImagePrompt.org, which generated a descriptive prompt based on the original photograph. I then copied that prompt and used it in NightCafe Studio and Deep Dream Generator to create new interpretations of the image.

Naturally, the AI-generated artwork is not an exact copy of the original slide—but that was never my intention. Instead, I wanted to see how AI would reinterpret an old photograph, and I really like the result. It has inspired me to revisit more of my vintage slides and explore how they can be transformed into entirely new works of art.

 

Inktense Pencils revisited

I've got 26 inktense pencils, some of them bought in a bos of 12 pencils, and some of them bought additionally in loose stock. I've bought them a long time ago, and after painting with my waterpencils I decided to use the inktense pencils again. This time I forced myself to sit down and do a color chart first before doing an abstract painting. I was quite glad to have this chart when I began to paint - there is such a big difference between the color you get when you apply the pencil on the paper and the color you get when you use a damp brush to wet the pencil marks!