Sandy Breckenridge

Introduction: Basic Design Element Series

February 11, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge Leave a Comment

Design: The logical selection and arrangement of visual elements for order and interest.

Everything our eyes rest upon can be described as a design. For example, the veins in a leaf, the lines on a hand, or billowing clouds.

Even when we doodle or scribble, we can call these marks we make with our tools—pencils, sticks, fingers—designs!

It’s quite fascinating how our doodles can be identified within the twenty basic scribbles you see below:

Our doodles can also be seen within these eight basic diagrams:

Beyond, there are combinations and aggregates:

I recently had so much fun developing an artistic technique using construction caulking. I called this new creation Caulk a Doodle Do.

Design is Primarily Redesign

Perhaps by now, you have come to realize you have been a designer all along. Artistic expression doesn’t have to fit into any type of box.

Some of my best students who attend my creative exploratory classes instinctively know how to move beyond boxes and just play. The people who feel most artistically challenged often forget one essential insight: Play!

Usually, the hesitancy to play is rooted in a judgment that art should exactly replicate physical reality. There is nothing wrong with reproducing what we see but it’s such a narrow, often arduous artistic path and can be a bit lonely.

Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.” — Amy Lowell

I like that quote. Through art, personality is revealed. I bet if you examine some of your favorite art pieces you’ll notice how those artist’s interpretations are reflected within your perceptions. That’s what makes art so personal and so freeing.

Art is discovery, art is playfulness, art is desire manifested into form.

My hope is this Graphic Design Basic Element Series will open the door so you may begin to explore your unique creative eye by tuning up your vision. No matter what medium choose to express yourself, remember you are a creator by nature waiting for self-validation. Making a mark is the first step.

In a way, an artistic expression is a form of self-love. Today is as good a day as any to begin a practice to free your creative spirit.

In the second tutorial post of this series, I’ll cover the Basic Design Descriptions & Shapes. I hope to meet you there!

Please visit the Art & Design Table of Contents to follow each series in its order.

Palette Colors for Painting Blue and Cloudy Skies

February 5, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge Leave a Comment

“Once you have tasted the taste of the sky, you’ll forever look up.” — Leonardo Da Vinci

Are you a cloud gazer who enjoys looking up at the sky, curious to see what familiar shapes and images might form?

It can be exciting to see a shape emerge as the wind currents blow through the moisture in the clouds: a dog, a cat, an angel, maybe a shape like a heart.

Why do the colors of the sky and clouds vary so much?

During the seventeen years I lived in Hawaii, I noticed the penetrating blue skies were often filtered with a hint of aqua blue-green. On any given day, the skies appeared so vivid with a few scattered lofty, low lying, and billowy white clouds floating by.

The closer we get to the equator, the more luminous sky blue palettes become.

I now live in the Pacific Northwest and at times the sky can offer the same vibrant hues as the tropics. On really sunny days, the blues are quite striking when the clouds are dissolved and a true sky blue emerges.

Here at latitude 47, a great percentage of the time the blues are lighter and duller mixed with shades of grey due to all the moisture that is filtering the light. The elevation of the clouds is much higher moving with the air currents.

No matter where a person lives, the sky can offer an artist a relationship that forever changes.

Creating Harmony When Painting the Sky

Essentially, the artist will paint three different types of skies:

All blue skies
Gray and cloudy skies
Mixed blue and cloudy skies

Blue Skies

Winsor Blue (aka as Phalo Blue) and maybe a touch of Ultramarine Blue are the foundation blue hues that you’ll adjust to match your image.

On a bright sunny day, you’ll start with Winsor Blue, then add a bit of white and a touch of orange. This mix is traditionally known as sky blue. Depending on the angle the light is filtering through, you might add just a touch of Ultramarine Blue to deepen the color to match your scrap image or a bit more white if your sky is lighter.

At the bottom of all blue skies next to the horizon, you’ll notice the light softens and changes where the sky meets the earth. Adding a touch of blended Yellow Ochre will create the perfect illusion to define where the background fades and the middle ground comes forward.

Cloudy Skies

Cloudy skies start by first creating a gradation of gray at 20, 30, and 60 percent by blending white and ivory black. Then you’ll either warm up or cool down the percentage of grey that is closest to your scrap image by adding Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre, or Alizarin Crimson.

If you are painting dark clouds you’ll add a bit of either Raw Sienna or Burnt Umber to Ultramarine Blue as shown in the small swatches on the illustration.

Your medium and desired effect will determine how you apply the paint.

Mixed Blue and Cloudy Skies

With mixed skies, you essentially combine the hues for blue and cloudy skies. What’s wonderful about the Double Primary Palette is you have paint wells ready to go with the percentages of grey making it easy to mix the cloud preferences.

Additional Tips for Painting Watercolor Skies

The image above provides all the reference details you’ll need for any type of sky. The smaller swatches illustrate the different mixes depending on the darkness of your clouds. No matter what medium you use, even digital, the specified color blends will work well.

When using watercolors for painting skies, control the water’s edges by ensuring you don’t allow the edges to dry. Remember you start light and build toward the darker areas.

When adding clouds, you can create little dribbles that move upward. Keep applying little dabs of your mixed colors to get the variety of cloud colors you are seeking.

Always note your light source so you can keep the darkest areas of the clouds balanced. A square tip brush works well to pick up color. Tissues are handy when you need to blot out a bit of color to leave some white spaces.

Since all your color mixes contain various amounts of red, yellow, and blue, your painting, including your skies, can achieve color harmony.

In my next post in this series, I’ll cover how to build a foundation for your background plus I’ll share how to paint mountains. If you would like a notice when I publish the next post, feel free to subscribe to my blog by entering your information below, and remember to keep looking up. 😎

To read previous posts in how to set up your painting palette visit, the Art & Design Table of Contents.

Grand Coulee’s Grandeur to Creston’s Fields of Gold

February 3, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge Leave a Comment

In 2018, Kirk and I took a road trip from our home in Edmonds. We headed north then east over the scenic Cascade Mountains and then up to British Columbia, Canada. Since it was at the end of summer the kids were back in school so we happily missed the tourist season crowds.

On our return trip, we chose to travel south then east through northeastern, Washington. It was a three-day trip to get back home so the first night we stayed at a hotel with a view of Grand Coulee Dam.

The slideshow below contains three pictures found in our hotel room, and a spanning view of the Dam.

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The history of the damn goes back to the ’30s and was once thought of as a “pork barrel” scheme. It took the Great Depression and President Roosevelt’s need to create a vast public utility project that would employ thousands of men for the approval and funding for Grand Coulee Dam to move forward.

Heading West to Endless Fields of Gold

The next day we drove from our hotel through the adjacent town of Electric City.

After driving east about twenty-two miles we entered the region known as the Big Bend Plateau. The elevation in this area is between 1,500 to 2,500 feet and a system of channels or coulees are eroded into bedrock by glacial rivers and streams that were created from the ice age.

The endless winding road through the fields of gold reminds one to drive safely.

This is a sparsely populated area sitting in the middle of Lincoln County and it’s where you’ll find what remains of the towns of Wilbur and Creston.

The area is known for its agriculture. We drove through endless golden wheat fields as far as the eye could see. Orchards are spotted through the area and cattle graze in the valleys and on the rolling hills. This high plateau region has its own kind of beauty.

Here is a fun video from the car will driving along Highway 2 looking to the north.

A Bit of Lincoln County History

Lincoln County was formed back in 1883 and stories about its first settlers include a character nicknamed “Wild Goose Bill’ (Samuel Wilbur Condit). In 1875 he was recorded as the first actual white settler in the area and his homestead was where the town of “Goosetown” or Wilbur now stands, although we didn’t see any public buildings left standing.

Next, to Wilbur is a pit-stop town called Creston with a population of 236 as of 2010, and the elevation is 2441 ft. The town was formed as a stop along the Central Pacific Railroad. It also has an interesting history. In 1902, the last surviving member of the infamous Hole in the Wall Gang, Harry Tracy, was shot at a Creston ranch and then he killed himself to avoid capture.

The slide show below conveys the unique beauty of the region when driving by the grassy plains and homesteads.

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Transmission lines in Washington state — Transmission Lines in Creston, Wa

Transmission lines now run across the plateau from Grand Coulee Dam and are quite visible from the highway. Their tall stature and the perceived buzz in the air left me with a cold and unsettled feeling due to their dominance.

But that passed quickly as I imagined the history of this area. I wondered about the Native Americans from this region, known as the Cowiche, and the fur traders and gold miners who passed through.

I thought about the first white settlers and those who built the Central Railroad that brought the telegraph.

I thought about all those who died in the region building infrastructure through the years and those who survived in the hard winters and through all the changes.

If time could talk, I am sure this region would provide endless stories.

Can You Say: Caulk a Doddle Do?

February 1, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge Leave a Comment

“You can’t use up creativity, the more you use the more you have.” — Maya Angelou

I was in my garage art studio looking at a thin piece of 30×36” Masonite board that is sitting in the corner. I had just finished a repurposing project using up some of the old baseboards. The outdoor planter I created was almost finished and required a little bit of painter’s caulking and a last touch of paint.

Several cans of “oops” paint were sitting on my work surface. I buy this paint from my local home improvement store when they make mistakes or receive returns they can’t resell. They mark down the cans to $2 a quart. It’s a joy to scoop these up when they have vibrant, glossy acrylic paint. Glossy paint is a great choice to use in various recycling projects. I’ve also discovered acrylic house paint can work as an art medium.

An Unexpected Medium Offers an Idea

Recently, I attended an art show and noticed how the textured surface of one of the artist’s collections stood out. I loved the three-dimensional nature of the build-up but the price of the medium they used to get the effect was too expensive for my budget. I thought about the tube of paintable caulking I already had in the caulk gun ready to go. Why not try an experiment? I wondered if this inexpensive construction medium might work to create the build-up I was seeking.

I had the Masonite board surface, the paint, and now a possible build-up medium. I pulled out my saw horses for an additional work table, filled a jar with water to wet my finger to smooth out the caulking, and started my experiment.

Play Day One

The first step was to lay down the caulking and figure out how to build up the surface. I had no idea what I wanted to create so I just started playing.

In the introduction to Basic Graphic Design Element Series, we learn that doodles are some of the first noticeable designs. So that’s where I started.

First, I laid down a thin skim coat. Next, I created a doodle pattern on top. I noticed how the caulk was a bit too puffy and had some lingering trails. A wet finger did the trick to smooth out the painter’s caulk and smush down where needed.

I let it dry overnight and began to imagine the next step.

Play Day Two

After the caulking had dried, it was time to begin playing with my “oops” paint. I applied a wash over the entire piece and noticed how when painted the dried texture had a quality like a very old plaster or stucco painting. What an exciting result!

At times when I create art, I tend to vacillate between trying to be too exact and detailed or being messy and playful. Doodles don’t lend themselves to being too precise so this piece needed to reflect how imperfections can be intentional results. The patterns began to resemble mandala art. It made me think how people’s faces and bodies are quite asymmetrical and and yet we are all unique and perfect. Most mandala art is uniform, but this one was designed to celebrate how we are all unique.

Choosing a Color Palette

I chose muted but complementary colors to create harmony and add to the aged, rustic appearance.

As I applied the paint to the doodles, it began to build depth and the piece was coming to life. The playfulness in the imperfections appeared natural and fun. It was obvious when the painting was finished and ready for a frame.

It was exciting to try an experimental piece and find a new technique for future artistic explorations. For the next painting, I would like to use one of the many blank canvases sitting there waiting for my next creative idea.

Click the following text if you’d like to see some of my > budget Home Renovation Projects

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