I’d say one of my main accomplishments today was creating art without injuring myself! I’m sure my fingers greatly appreciated it. I’m still working on the large 3-piece mixed media art and have basically gotten the mixed media tree finished. The edges are drying on that creation this evening and then I can get a photo of it to share soon! I also started a couple of new experiments on illustration board today. The 3-piece mixed media had one step added to it first thing this morning and is still wet. I’m hoping that tomorrow or Thursday it will be dry so I can continue. I took a tube of black paint and put a thick outline around each of the areas that has the texture remaining after I removed the wire mesh.
Currently I am thinking those areas will remain black & white with the rest of the canvas being brightly colored. BUT…maybe I’ll reverse that. I can’t decide! I know it will come to me when it’s time.
While I was waiting for that to dry I decided to try something I’d read about recently. It was a rather mixed result but I ran with it and think the end result may turn out just fine. The first step was to tape off the edges of two pieces of illustration board to (hopefully) keep a clean, white border.
Next you take a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil and cover it with black gesso. Use a roller to spread the paint evenly over the entire area.
Once it’s dried to the point that the wet sheen of paint is gone then you flip it on top of your illustration board and write/mark/draw all over the foil to transfer a design onto your board. My first try I must have waiting too long before I flip the foil because it didn’t make near as many marks on the board as I thought it would.
The second try I flipped it over a bit sooner and had a little more success.
After that step dried I went in with a soft charcoal pencil and drew a dark edge around the pieces, smoothing & softening it into the composition. I also made additional marks (especially on the first piece) in the design to add more detail. I sealed the pieces with some poly-acrylic so that the charcoal wouldn’t smudge and then started adding color.
I splashed a wet wash of color over the piece and then tilted it up & down, right & left and all around to spread it.
Then I sprayed it with some water so it would bleed around and let it sit for a while. After that I blotted it with a paper towel and added thicker splashes of the same color around the piece and let it dry.
The last step for the day was to trace over the design with a small tipped applicator full of black acrylic. Where it seemed to need a little extra help I added some marks, lines & circles with the acrylic too.
Now it, too, will hopefully be dry for tomorrow. I know I want to add some copper paint to the mix and haven’t decided if I can stop there or will need another color (or two?) to make the pieces feel complete. We’ll just have to wait and see!
I totally blew my “use what I got” mentality out of the water today when there was a cradled panel sale online – buy 2 get one FREE. Oh, I am a sucker for FREE, even when it cost me to get it. 🙂 I really love working on the wood panels vs. canvas so I know I will be using these soon, even if I technically didn’t NEED them today. I am contemplating my schedule this week…normally I try to do two days back-to-back in the studio just to keep things flowing but they are predicting more snow here on Thursday and I had planned on doing a large list of errands that day. So, do I switch and run my errand tomorrow and stay tucked in Thursday? Or pretend I don’t know that it’s going to snow and stay home tomorrow and get “snowed in” on Thursday – and hope that the errands work themselves out down the line? Hmmmm. More decisions! An extra day in the studio might just be enough to sway me though…
Until tomorrow,
Lynne
A Randomly Creative Blog 
Very nice! I love the blue and black together.
Thank you! I seem to be favoring blue lately. 🙂 The finished pieces should be on the blog within the next 24 hours if you want to take a peek. I’m glad you stopped by & left a comment!
L.