C. Dianne Zweig Announces New Contemporary Art Studio in Simsmore Square, Simsbury, CT

I’ve been busy unpacking and settling into my new Art studio at 542 1/2 Hopmeadow St. in Simsbury CT. My charming cottage style building in this quiet mixed use village style setting adjacent to open land is delightful. The building, formerly a Children’s boutique may look traditional on the outside, but inside, I am introducing the Mid-century vibe that inspires my artwork. On a side note, someday I hope to be able to have a cottage just like this in a beach setting, but in the meantime, Simsbury is a lovely town to have a studio!.

Where to find me:

For awhile I am concentrating on using the space as a work studio and will not offer retail hours. Two days a week beginning in the Fall, I teach at the West Hartford Art League. My work is represented by the PS Gallery in Litchfield. CT or you can you can email me at Dianne@cdiannezweig.com for more information.

Join Two Exciting Abstract Groups on Facebook

My Two New Groups on Facebook:

The Art of Mark Making in Abstract Art: 

Recently, I started a group on Facebook called The Art of Mark Making in Abstract Art for artists to share innovative Mark making techniques, tools, works in progress, completed works, product information, critique discussions, exhibits, shows, articles, videos and more. 

The Art of Creating Abstract Art

My first group had so many members asking questions that went beyond mark making that I developed a sister group called The Art of Creating Abstract Art to cover the nuts and bolts of being an abstract artist. 

Staining Papers For Collage With Tea

Using tea to stain mixed media papers is another way to create interesting effects, textures and tones. Tea creates a variety of colors and patterns. You can boil a kettle of water, pour the liquid in mugs and seep a few bags of tea at the same time in several different mugs. Then dab or print using the teabags onto drawing or copy paper, creating all kinds of patterns. Be careful that the teabags are not too hot when you handle. You can also fill an aluminum pan with tea soaked water and dip your papers into the pan of tea water. The paper will get very soggy, but it will dry. Prepare some baking sheets lined with drawing paper to dry the soaked sheets. The best way to approach this process is to experiment. You can crumble the paper before you begin staining. You can also vary how you apply the tea liquid to the paper. Besides dabbing wet tea bags onto papers or soaking papers in liquid, you can also use a paint brush or foam brush to brush on the tea to drawing or copy paper. etc.

Mark Making On Brown Paper Shopping Bags

Mixed Media artists are always looking for new surfaces to paint on for a variety of reasons from stretching their imaginations to cutting down the cost of materials. In a recent art class I invited students to practice mark making with inspiration coming from Shaman masks using ordinary brown shopping bags as their "paper" or surface. Students could use the whole bag or cut up the bag following the seams in the bag. Black and white gesso worked really well on top of the bag as well as soft pastels. Detailed marks were then made with metallic pens,  paint pens, markers, oil pastels etc. While the lesson at hand was mark making, brown bags can also be used for surfaces for collage or Acrylic paintings.  

Writing Gibberish Using A Silver Uniball Gel Impact Pen On Black Paper For Mixed Media Collage

I have been spending the cold months writing gibberish with all types of fine-liners. This collage was my break out piece with writing on black paper with a Silver Uni-ball GEL IMPACT pen. The key to writing gibberish is to make your writing look like real language but truth be known, there are no real words, just flowing "scribbles" which look a lot like real words or letters. I found it much easier to pretend to write when I was passionate about my gibberish. In this case I was expressing my "words" thinking about how exasperated I was with the political climate in Washington. That inner dialogue made for some wonderful free flowing gibberish! 

Storing Liquitex Soft Body Paint Jars Upside Down So You Can See The Colors Easily

I have mixed feelings about sharing with you Kim Weston's approach to storing her Liquitex paint jars. Kim, an artist in New Haven, who I met at Erector Square's Open studios, recently, showed me a great trick. If you want to see the colors of your paint at a glance, you can store your jars of paint upside down. I do like the idea very much, BUT here is my one and BIG concern.....I'm very messy with my paint jars. The cap barely fits back on the jar when Im finished playing around with my paints in a Mixed Media piece. In order for me to model my studio after Kim;s, I would have to vow to work very carefully, wiping the top of the jar after each use and then screwing the cap back very intentionally. This will take some time for me to clean up my act. But in the meantime, I thought I'd share this idea with others who may be more meticulous when working. 

Using The Bottom End of Your Paint Tube To Create Marks in Abstract Art

The joy of teaching art is learning about so many new mark making techniques from your students. Yes, as the instructor, I am always sharing the tricks of the trade with my students in my classes. But, I must say, as I stroll around the room checking on student progress I discover quite a lot of cool methods that students share with me. Case in point is the novel approach of scraping wet paint with the bottom end of an acrylic paint tube. Look at the lovely textures and marks (right side of image) thats swiping with the end of the tube of paint makes. Thanks to Jill Pasanen for this tip.

Using An Old Kitchen Cottage Cabinet As A Work Table In Your Art Studio

I spotted this old kitchen cottage cabinet in a nearby Antique store and wondered how terrific this piece would be as a work table in an art studio. With deep drawers and shelves, counter height and ample table top work space, this cabinet is a very practical piece for an art or craft studio. After pricing similar new work stations in stores and online, this older piece was priced at almost one quarter of the price of newly made work stations. I wish I could tell you I bought it, but I was twenty minutes late, someone snatched it just before my visit to the store! But I thought I would share this idea with my readers.    

Smearing Paint Directly Onto Old Book Pages For Mixed Media Collage

 If you sometimes need a break form washing paint brushes, consider pouring or dabbing a little paint directly onto your surface and smearing with a pice of folded up cardboard or a credit card. I like to randomly draw onto pages with a Sharpie pen and that cover some of my marks with paint. I often will go back over the dried paint and draw shapes and lines on top of the blotches. Then I tear up my painted pages and create abstract collages. I find old books at library tag sales and other places where tattered or old books are either tossed away or sold for under a dollar. 

Having A Talk With Your Painting: When Is It Finished?

 O.K. confession time..I have been working on an   abstract painting for way too many months. Each time I return to this painting I declare that on that particular day, if I resolve just a few more problem areas that my work will be finished!  Sometimes I even take pictures of work in progress and look at it on my cell phone in the evening when I am home. I often convince myself that the next time I return to my studio... bingo I will just need to add a little of this or that and I'll be done. But even with some tinkering, that "finish" bell may not ring as I expected.  How does one know when an abstract painting is done?  One of my mentors said in a critique session "that a painting is not finished...it just stops in interesting places".  So with that comment in mind, I'm returning to my studio and I am going to have a talk with my painting and ask it what would make you more interesting?

What Is Mark Making in Art ?

Many artists will say that all drawing and painting involves some form of mark making. A general viewpoint is that as soon as your brush (or whatever tool you use) touches your canvas or paper, you are making a mark! Marks can be lines, scribbles, scratches, smudges, dots, dashes, patterns, textures. All different types of artists use a variety of mark making approaches in their work. Artists may use expressive and intuitive marks in non-objective work, meaning that the work does not represent anything in the natural world. Or perhaps an abstract artist using a dry brush technique might make short, fast lines suggestive of blades of grass even though that  association was not intended. The viewer has attributed their own meaning to the lines. On the other hand, the Impressionists used mark making in the form of dabs, hatching and cross hatching to add movement, texture, light and life to the scenes they depicted in their paintings.  Marks can be soft and subtle and barely noticeable in some work or they can be bold and intense, occupying a sense of grandness in a work.

How Do I Start Painting Or Drawing Abstracts?

Many members who joined my new Facebook group The Art of Mark Making in Abstract Art ask how they might learn how to transition from painting or drawing realistically to creating non-objective work (abstracts). One of the best ways to channel your inner Abstract artist is to roll out a giant piece of  white paper (like the kind restaurants use to cover tables).Then gather all your mark making products such as pencils, pastels, markers, crayons, chalk, charcoal etc. Add a few jars or tubes of acrylic paint with some brushes to your materials stash. Next put on some peppy music. Pin your paper to a wall covered with newspaper or plastic or lay on a protected table. Now...just start scribbling and drawing and making marks like you did in Kindergarten when your inner critic was not yet fully formed. Cover the entire piece of paper with dry media followed by paint. Let the paint dry and add more marks on top of paint. Build many layers. Stand back and look at your work. Keep playing until you start seeing forms, shapes, patterns etc. Ask your self what does it need and continue to edit accordingly. And that is how you start painting Abstracts!  Working large lets you work more spontaneously and will help you leave your more realistic side behind. 

Gaining Confidence In Making A Variety of Black Lines In Mixed Media Art

Artists are always asking each other "so what did you use to make that line ?" Lines always seem to look better on someone else's work. The truth is that oftentimes we are admiring the work of an experienced artist who has developed a certain degree of confidence in their line making.   Don't get me wrong, product does indeed matter and I of course have my favorite fine-liner and heavy liner pens and products, but the key to making line and marks is practice not product. Once you have mastered the ease at drawing or scribbling a variety of lines you are probably ready to obsess over the "blackness" of these lines....that is another conversation. 

Slanting Lines and Shapes To Create Movement in Mixed Media Art

Sometimes all it takes is a slight shift of some of your shapes to create the suggestion of movement or energy in an otherwise still collage.  You will see that I tilted the large greenish- grey shape on the left to add some oomph to the composition. It doesn't take much to accomplish an important variance in the orientation of shapes and lines. If I had slanted too many shapes I would be back where I started from with a monotonous composition. It is the importance of surprise that matters. Also important to note is that once I made this change, everything else seemed to feel quite right.  

Cretacolor Chunky Charcoal Sticks Produces Intense Black Lines and Strokes For Abstract Expressive Dawing

I just discovered Cretacolor charcoal stick (chunky). What an intense black you will get when mark making with this product. As you can see you can produce a variety of applications with this Cretacolor stick from very thick bold lines to thinner and medium value lines and strokes. Turn the stick on it's side and you can cover the paper with sweeping shades of the charcoal allowing for a background covering.  Have plenty of paper towels or rags on hand when drawing with charcoal as this is a messy process but also a very exciting way to draw in an abstract expressive way. Cretacolor charcoal is packaged in a variety of ways including just black sticks or other sets which offer a variety pack of colors. You can also buy single sticks.  While you can of course wear surgical gloves when working with Charcoal art materials, some artists like to have direct contact with their drawing tools. Be prepared however, to look in the mirror and see your "work" on your face!  

Mark Making And Drawing With Masking Fluid in Abstract Mixed Media

West Hartford Art League student Jeudi Carr.

How many of us buy art supplies that we put on a shelf or forget about? That is the sorry outcome of what happened to my bottle of  Masking fluid....it was neglected after i bought it on a whim one day.. Then a few weeks ago one of my students brought a bottle of Masking fluid to class. She essentially "drew" with this rubber cement like product  and then peeled the dried fluid off the paper leaving areas that remained white instead of painted. The fluid is very easy to work with and can be applied in numerous ways from pouring, dribbling or brushing onto work. The results were exciting and I now feel quite confident that I too will soon join the club of artists who use Masking fluid as a resist in Mixed media artwork. My bottle of Masking fluid will soon be cracked open and loved instead of abandoned.

Mark Making On Newspaper: Taking My Cues From Picasso

Just like Picasso, I enjoy working on newspaper as a pleasant change from painting or drawing on a plain piece of white paper. There is nothing more satisfying to me than the rich black lines you get from using a Sharpie pen directly onto newspaper. It's fun (and relaxing) to outline the newspaper columns or create new forms and designs covering over photos and advertisements. After working at my drafting table for awhile, the smell seems to knock me over and I know its time to open that window and to take a Sharpie break. Then I might add some acrylic paint to the newspaper shapes using the end of a piece of cardboard, a plastic credit card or even a brush to smear or apply the paint. When the paint dries I might bring back more marks with the Sharpie.  Painted papers can be used in collage or as solo pieces of work. 

It's Hard To Be Simple: Learning How To Create Minimalist Abstact Artwork

It might seem simple to paint or collage a Minimalist piece, but as many artists have discovered, it is very difficult to be simple! Minimalism looks at how objects relate to the physical space of the paper. Working in a minimalist mode you are eliminating all nonessential forms, colors, elements, textures, features etc. You are bringing your work down to the basics and conveying a calming tone. One way to learn how to "find" a minimalist composition is to take a piece of drawing paper and to randomly and quickly apply paint, marks, scribbles leaving some areas of white space. Try not to think too much when doing this. Next take a scissor and cut the piece up into small squares (without thinking too much...just cut up!)  Now examine your squares and isolate compositions which are nice and simple. You can than use those thumbnails for inspiration for larger pieces.

Using Con-Tact Shelving Paper For Masking Or Stenciling In Mixed Media Art

Con-Tact Shelving paper has multiple uses both in the home and in the art studio. Because this shelving paper has an adhesive backing, you can cut out shapes from the paper and position on a Mixed mMedia piece where you would like to leave white space showing. Or if you would like to add a new color on top of an underlying layer, you use your stencil to apply the  new  paint color. You can buy Con-Tact shelving paper in most home stores. Con-Tact Creative Covering Multipurpose Shelf Liner also allows you to reposition the paper so that you can easily lift off your artwork without damaging your project. Thank you  to Susan Spaniol for sharing this technique in our WHAL Wednesday afternoon class on Abstract Mark Making.  

Balancing Chaos Versus Control in Making Abstract Art

It took me decades to learn how to make a mess and to finally relax and to stop worrying that i got paint on the floor !  Of course I needed an art studio with hard wood floors to be able to have the luxury of being able to spill, pour, fling, splatter, spray, tear etc. and not de-compensate over the collateral damage I was creating. I'm not totally freak out free yet...I do like my slop sink white and clean and Comet is my best friend. However with the pleasure one takes with channeling their Abstract Expressionism, also comes the understanding that skilled artists know how to balance chaos and control when making abstract art. Pollack didn't just splatter paint....he was keenly aware of his composition resulting in very organized and successful artwork. Franz Kline 's seemingly impulsive black and white pieces were planned out first. Many Abstract artists work hard at the process of making a wonderful mess, reigning in their work, constructing and deconstructing and ultimately modulating the tensions of spontaneity, creativity and skill.