Asterias vulgaris

I seem to have an endless supply of long narrow strips of watercolour paper from cutting down full sheets to sizes I want to fit into frames.

As a result, I'm using the left over pieces as little slices of printed ocean or lake life.  This is a section of the third piece with is a little more narrow - 4 x 22 approximately.  A series of these hung as a stack on the wall could be quite interesting.

The addition of watercolour and sand creates an almost abstract piece for these sea stars.  This started with a print of a Boreal Asterias sea star, which is common in the waters around the province and starts life as a pale purple colour drying to a sand colour.  I have been lucky to access more sea stars of different varieties, one with six legs that is very red and another with nine legs.   Sea stars or starfish as they are commonly known are amazingly aggressive in their habitat of the sea floor and can decimate sea urchin and mussel populations.

Blog adjustments

 Large mouth bass trio

gyotaku and watercolour   22" x 6"

In the everyday scramble that is called life, we often throw a post or image onto our blogs then forget about them again for a day or two.   The overall look or feel of the blog becomes as important as the content and can entice viewers in or chase them away.

Over the last couple of days I've been tweaking my blog to try to make it easier to navigate and read and have removed and/or changed some elements.   One of the major changes I've made is a move over to Fine Art America for on-demand reproductions and greeting card printing.   FAA is one of the leaders in the field of POD (print on demand) and has the highest traffic levels of the current POD leaders which translates into more visbility for your art and more potential for sales.

Original pieces have moved from Etsy for the moment and reside on their own separate page on this blog.  Its simply easier to track where things are and to avoid confusion.   You can browse the art available for reproductions through the slide show on the right side of the blog.

A sign up button for my newsletter makes it simple to ensure that you get the October copy which is building nicely and will be chock full of reading goodies, with a few Halloween treats thrown in for good measure!   Sign up and try out the next issue of Jeanette Jobson Fine Art.

Guaranteed to please or your money back!  I know, I couldn't resist...

These little largemouth bass were printed onto the left over piece of 200lb watercolour paper from the cut down of another sheet.  I have one more left of these strips and thought that long narrow pieces make good windows into the watery world.

Sand and water

I've been trying different fish prints on different papers to see how they work.   I can't reveal the whole piece as I want to keep it as part of the final exhibition, but you can see enough here to understand the technique and what I'm trying to achieve.

This is a peek at a long narrow piece with bluegills printed on watercolour paper in raw sienna ink.  I then flooded the paper with watercolour that enhanced the natural colours of the fish and while it was wet, I sprinkled fine sand over the lower surface.

The sand doesn't absorb pigment and water as salt grains would, but disperses it evenly giving a soft effect to the piece.  The sand does stick to the paper and adds texture, but I'll need to rub it off before framing or it will have its own little beach behind glass!