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You are here: Home / Archives for acrylic ink

Winter Paintings from the Sea

January 1, 2017 by Iskra 1 Comment

“When a young painter said he wanted to paint the moon, someone pointed out, ”But you can’t paint the moon, the moon belongs to Max Ernst.”— from Rowing Toward Eden, By Ted Morgan

New Year’s morning has dawned with sunlight and snow. The forecast is for optimism, a lovely antidote to the last months of 2016. In spite of temperatures near freezing, my mind is on the beach. I have been finishing paintings for the Museo Gallery winter show opening in January. Although the title of the show is “Beach Party,” every rowdy bash has someone who wanders off to find shells and tumbled glass and the perfect small stone to put with the other five hundred and fifty in the back yard, and that would be me. The bright colors will have to come from somebody else’s beach towel, I am just too immersed in celadon.

Glass moon bottle photograph
Photo © Iskra Johnson

For the weeks that I have been painting water and shells Max Ernst’s “Moon in a Bottle” has floated on the periphery of my mind. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Painting, Recent Posts Tagged With: acrylic ink, FW ink, how to paint with open acrylic, Iskra shows, Max Ernst, moonshell, museo gallery, shell painting

Painting with Water . . . . “don’t be afraid, be curious”

November 1, 2016 by Iskra 1 Comment

To paint with water is to go swimming out beyond the breakers. If you let yourself drift for a moment in the line between sky and sea,  if you let your body become long like a fin and your eyes go wide and light with clouds, if you completely let go you can be sure that in the next moment the current will shift and the waves will crash upon your fragile ribs and spin you into not knowing.

Painting with water is just one big risk of drowning.

To remain curious while going under takes a greater leap of faith than I am accustomed to. Working small however— wading — takes no courage or faith at all. It’s just a place to be, a tide pool. If you are tiny and the world is tiny and you are eye to eye with the barnacles on the edge of the deep blue shell this is simply happiness and why argue?

Here are three little Water Babies, eight by eight inches, that seem to have survived the surf. I am learning how to paint with acrylic ink, and I am mesmerized. It’s like you can make your own weather wherever you go.

Big Sur painting by Iskra
Big Sur

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Painting, Recent Posts Tagged With: acrylic ink, acrylic painting, Big Sur, painting water, shell painting, water media, wave painting

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