Category Archives: Mountains

Lost And Found

Yo No Se. 8 x 8 in. mixed media on Arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2018 Sheila Delgado.

WIP, additional layers. 8 x 8 in. watercolor on Arches 140 lb. cold pressed paper. © 2018 Sheila Delgado.

Yo no se. I don’t know. I still don’t know what to make of this. One step further though. I think it is still a work in progress. It will have to gel awhile. First piece of the year. Crossed one unfinished project off my list.

This started with layers of watercolor back in October. I kept seeing a dark tree. There are many images of trees online, so I thought I was just channeling something I liked on social media. But it stuck. So I took a sheet of old music, and carved a tree. I added indigo watercolor, and some lines for texture.

The sheet music was a gift from my good friend Christiane Drieling. A wonderful, amazing surprise. An old book of Schubert music. Christiane creates wonderful collage stories using old papers.
Her blog is a treat if you haven’t seen it.

Schubert Book.

I searched for two days for this book. Hid it away, cleaning for company. Well, first I looked for the photos I took when it arrived. Couldn’t find those, so I needed the book. Yup, neat freak lost it. I mean, there are only so many places it could be. I knew I was probably looking right at it. And I was. It was exactly where it belongs. With art pads and papers. The book is falling apart, so I put it in a manilla envelope.

If you are on Instagram, you have seen the next two images. Just for fun.
My best nine Instagram posts. Six of them are from the #100dayproject.

Best Nine of 2018. Sheila Delgado

My Year of Colour. The app pulls color from all your Instagram posts. Artwork and photographs. It surprises me that there is such a small amount of yellow. Ha ha.

Year of Colour 2018. Sheila Delgado

We waited all year for snow to fall. It was a white New Years Eve.
Snowed 6 hours, slow and steady.

First Winter snow. SMD

The mountains were hidden in clouds, when they started clearing it was really pretty.
The hills had matching cloud cover.

Clearing up. SMD

Sunset the following day. The hills looked like iced oatmeal cookies.

Mingus winter color. SMD

The Year

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1910

God Bless and keep you safe.
May you have a JOY filled year ahead!

Bits And Pieces

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Heaven and Nature. Mingus 12-17-18. SMD

A colorful sunset…

Written on the Wind. SMD

Reminded me of a feather, or wings. Which do you see?

Moon Over Mingus. SMD

Brilliant sky on a cold winter night.

Snow falling. 12-28-18

I went to town to run errands the other day. Cold. Dark clouds in all directions.
Stopped at a light, I noticed a few tiny snowflakes falling. Hooray!

Snow Ahead.

Barely 20 minutes later, and blue skies dominated. Here and there, patches of snow falling. Looked more like smoke rising. First time I have seen that. Very cool.

Snow Clouds.

See the snow falling?

Art On 45

First layers.

Fellow artist, and good friend Christiane Drieling invited me to take part in her annual Art ON 45 event. From the group page: “ART ON 45” is a juried art project – artists are asked to paint/draw/collage on a 45rpm record and donate it for a silent auction to benefit a local organization. For the upcoming fourth edition, Christiane has chosen NCLAC (North Central Louisiana Art Council) to be the beneficiary because of their commitment to establish a valuable art program at the local Boys And Girls Club.

I left this to the last-minute. Partly because I was slightly intimidated by the substrate. Mostly though, due to my still lagging energy level. But what fun it was!

The submission guidelines suggested using primer on the vinyl record. Many articles I found on the subject showed a lengthy, involved priming process. I took a chance, and skipped all that. I cleaned the record. And started by using FolkArt Multi-Surface craft paint. Made for tin, plaster, terracotta, rigid plastic, paper mache, fabric, canvas, concrete, wood, glass & ceramics. It took 5 or 6 thin coats to cover the dark record. I painted both sides and made sure to seal the edge as well.

I was stumped on what to paint. A mandala? A pour? A musical subject? Finally I just went with… what I do. I pressed a textured paper towel into wet paint, to add texture to the table. Stenciled the pattern on the vase. Used “bits” of acrylic skins to add roughness to the wall. Here the raised areas show up as white spots.

My first try at the blooms leaned towards sunflowers. At the end I noticed I had neat little rows of buds. Never good. I tried again, and am happy with the results. I used Posca pen, first time, and there are a couple of bloopers. But I left them as is. Under the vase, the pen skipped. Gave me three neat little lines. Kinda cool that accident. And mimics the table pattern. Under my signature, another splatter. Resembles a twig tip.

One more accident. I melted the vinyl while drying the paint. For the record, vinyl melts fast! I used a heat gun to dry the flowers, at a safe distance. A few seconds too long, and I had a nice little, unplanned ripple. While waiting for the paint to dry completely, I decided I liked the defect. I took the heat gun to two more areas, and let the edge warp slightly.

Fits in with the slightly rustic feel of the piece. And makes sense, in my mind. If this was hanging on the adobe wall I painted, the heat of the desert would surely do the same. In time.

Turned out the satin sealer I used is really a high gloss finish. NOT happy with that. Had to get it in the mail, so gloss it is. It does however highlight the texture of the record.

Miss You Much. 7 inches, acrylic and pen on vinyl. © 2018 Sheila Delgado.

The 2019 auction is in downtown Ruston at Rumo’s Barbershop on March 16th, 2019.
I’ll keep you posted 😉

Oops! Almost forgot. I asked Leslie Saeta about the 30. She said the next one will be in September. But there is a Doodlewash watercolor event in January if you are interested.