hearts for february

Ideas and inspirations have left me for a bit (covid boredom? too much knitting and reading?). I've barely sent out any postcards except to Betsy. I thought about valentines postcards and maybe I'd do a lino cut? The regular heart is boring for a lino then I considered an anatomical heart but who wants to get that in the mail? Hmmm. . . . crayons? water-soluble pencils? Not feeling in the mood for watercolors. Oil Pastels!!!! Jim Dine inspired hearts! 

This was a good, short, FUN, figure-stuff-out project for me. It's probably why elementary and middle school art teachers use this medium. What was good about it -- 1) small size, 2) working on blending colors, 3) working on color choices, 4) working on creating depth in shape instead of flat (not sure I was successful but it was good practice), 5) working on positive and negative space, 6) satisfying to get something done in a few hours, 7) the soft oily color sticks are childlike fun to use.

Six postcards were taped to a piece of palette paper and black gesso'd. After all the coloring was done I had to use a hair dryer to get the tape off the paper. Artist tape really isn't that good and still pulls up paper. I'll let them sort of dry/harden overnight and then coat them with gloss medium and send them on their way through the mail.  

I am happy with how they turned out. My final heart was my least favorite and then I worked it some more after scraping of some oil pastel and now it's my favorite. First one looks like a mitten (a bit of depth or shading would have helped), next ones are fine as I was trying different blendings and color combos. 

Oil pastels are a bit of a mess but probably less than oil paint. They aren't cheap. I had some in winter snow colors and needed some other colors and of course Wet Paint was more than happy to sell me more colors. 

I'll let them "dry" overnight and coat them with gloss medium so they won't smear the postal carriers other mail.