Use this format to expand your painting process

I love this multi panel format! It’s great for pushing painting ideas around as well as expanding your process. Working this way is cost and time efficient too as you are working on many small scale paintings all on one sheet of paper. Starting with self imposed limitations such as timed exercises, choosing limited materials or color can boost your creative explorations. The examples below were from a recent painting workshop I taught on color.

Christine Sauer- Four sections of a larger grid of 5x7” paintings exploring a limited palette.

An array of favorite drawing media used to get the process started.

Christine Sauer, Workshop example demonstrating the use of chromatic white.

The process for the paintings above started with mark making as the first layer using a variety of black and white drawing media. Color was added using GOLDEN High Flow and Fluid Acrylics. The 19x25” 185lb Canson Montval Acrylic was taped off with 1” White Pro Artist Tape yielding nine, 5x7” panels. Below is an example of how the panels can be cut apart. Then the artwork can be mounted to cradled panels for display without needing to be shown under glass.

Christine Sauer, 5x7” painting on paper mounted to cradled panel.

Studio Workhorse.... GOLDEN High Flow Acrylics

Pictured here in the morning light, these amazing paints look like little gems on my studio table. There’s so much to love about these GOLDEN High Flow paints.  Their rich, intense color that flows off the brush like watercolor but is permanent when dry, and the ease of pouring, dripping and splashing this paint is just some of what makes it a “go to” paint in the studio. Because it’s highly pigmented a small amount goes a long way too.

Here are some of the ways that I work with these versatile paints.

•    Various ways of pouring and on different surfaces (substrates)

•         Staining rice paper (Hosho and Kozo) and tissue for collage and finished work

•         Drawing with Fineline Applicators and in refillable markers

•        Glazing with or without glazing medium

•     Washes of color

• Flinging paint by hand

STUDIO TIP: The High Flow Bottles have a small ball in them to help keep the paints properly mixed. It’s important to shake them vigorously prior to using. You can hear the ball rolling around when you shake the paint. I save the used bottles to make custom color mixes because of the ball. Keeping the colors well mixed is trickier without the ball.

View fullsize

Stained and painted tissue collage

View fullsize

Line drawing using Fineline Applicator

View fullsize

High Flow Acrylic poured and puddled on acrylic paper

View fullsize

High Flow Acrylic poured over Heavy Body Acrylic

View fullsize

Flinging High Flow by hand and pouring from the bottle

View fullsize

High Flow Acrylic poured, stained collage paper and drawing with a FineLine Applicator

View fullsize

Hosho paper stained with High Flow Acrylics

View fullsize

High Flow Acrylic pouring, "Ebb and Flow", 12x12x1.5" on cradled panel

View fullsize

High Flow Acrylics make the perfect drips

View fullsize

High Flow Acrylics in FineLine Apllicator and with Marker Top

A Few of My Favorite Art Supplies

FAVORITE ART SUPPLIES

ONLINE RETAILORS

https://www.dickblick.com

https://www.jerrysartarama.com

LOCAL RETAILORS (New Orleans Area)

http://www.davidartcenter.com

PAINTS

·         GOLDEN Artist Colors, Inc

i)        Fluid Acrylics

ii)       High Flow Acrylics

iii)      Heavy Body Acrylics

iv)     OPEN Acrylics

v)      QoR Watercolors

GELS, PASTES, MEDIUMS

·         GOLDEN Artists Colors, Inc.

  i)       Soft Gel Matte

              ii)     Glass Bead Gel

              iii)    Light Molding Paste, Hard Molding Paste

              iv)    Glazing Liquid, Satin

               v)    Matte Medium

  GOLDEN Matte and Gloss Pouring Mediums

·         LIQUITEX Pouring Medium

LIQUITEX Iridescent Medium

BRUSHES AND TOOLS

·         Princeton Catalyst Blades, Wedges and Contours

·         Creative Mark Painters’ Edge XL Spatula

·         West Colour Shapers, all

·         Princeton Velvet Touch #8 Round brush

·         Princeton Umbria #6, 1/2 “ Bright

·         Royal Langnickel Soft Grip #10 Flat and #10 Filbert

FAVORITE SUBSTRATES

Ampersand Cradled Panels

·         Artist Value Series, canvas textured

·         Gessobord, Aquabord

·         Unprimed Basswood

DaVinci Cradled Panels

·         Pro Birch Wood

·         Pro Resist Grip Textured Gesso

From Dick Blick

·         Dick Blick Studio and Premier Wood Panels

·         American Easel Birch Wood Panels, unprimed

PAPER 

For Acrylic and Mixed Media

·         Canson Montval Acrylic Paper 185 lb

·         Canson Mixed Media Paper

·         Union Square Watercolor Pad 140 lb, Cold Press

·         Canson Watercolor Paper 140 lb

·         Fabriano Artistico 300 lb, Cold Press

·         Yupo, Terra Skin, and Evolon

For Gelli Printing and Collage 

https://www.mulberrypaperandmore.com

http://www.gpcpapers.com

·         Black Ink  Block Printing Mulberry Paper

·         Black Ink Specialty Papers, Thai Mulberry

·         Strathmore Printmaking Paper

·         Stonehenge

DRAWING

·         Lyra Graphite Crayons, 6B

·         Inktense Pencils and Blocks

·         Richeson Shiva Paintsticks Oil

·         Karat Watercolor Crayons

·         Caran D’Ache NeoColor I Water Resistant Wax Pastels

·         Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Watersoluble Colour Crayons

  Ebony Pencils by Sanford

Cretacolor Graphite

Art Graf Graphitestick

Art Graf Viarco Taylor Chalk Shape

Nitram Liquid Charcoal

Faber-Castell Polychromos Colored Pencils

Montana markers

Molotow markers

Posca markers 

Mounting Paintings on Paper to Cradled Panels

The parade of paintings on my work table are lined up for next steps in the mounting process (above).  For the last several weeks I've been working on this project.  The pile of small works on paper has been growing steadily over the last couple of years. It's impossible to keep up with uploading them to the website.  Presenting them framed is cost prohibitive but I wanted a way to present at least some of them rather than being filed in a drawer for an occaisional viewing.  The idea to mount them to cradled panels came about during an exchange about this dilemma with an artist on Instagram.   After auditioning several paintings that would work for this kind of presentation I created a small test piece with the palm sized painting below. I love the way it turned out! More of these may go on the to-do list! 

The cradled basswood panels were prepped with GAC 100 and then gesso. Mounting the larger 9x12" and 11x14" paintings went well.   I used a thick application of GOLDEN's Soft Gel Matte, slathering it on with a palette knife like frosting a cake.  The paintings dried perfectly flat!  It was amazing considering that several pieces have collage and various types of acrylic paint on them which makes the surfaces uneven and some of the papers were buckled a bit.  The sides are in process of being painted.  There was an overstock sale at Jerry's Artarama on Ampersand Floater Frames for the 11x14" size so I purchased several to try out.  Looking forward to putting those together.   

Christine Sauer "Luminous"  11x14" acrylic and graphite on paper on cradled panel

This mounting process not only solved a problem but has also inspired many other ideas for other paintings and collages that i look forward to exploring soon.  If you are interested in more specific information about mounting art to panel or are interested in purchasing a piece please email me christinesauer@christinesauerstudio.space.

Christine Sauer, "Collection:Bundles"  11x14", acrylic, collage and Inktense pencils on paper on panel