Ahhh, back in the studio after a few days off. This week is going to be a little more sporadic than I’d like but sometime family matters take priority over art time – as much as I’d rather they didn’t! But a few hours here & there will do for now. 🙂 Today’s progress included a decision on a design for a new project, a happy accident when I was floundering, an exciting supply delivery (see above) and some fun new collage pieces! Oh, and guess what else? A long-forgotten residency application came back with a YES! Woo, hoo! Now that was a wonderful surprise! In my last studio update I showed you an image of the newly/brightly colored 2’x6′ mixed media artwork I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. When I had first started the piece it was entirely black & white and I thought painted a few areas with a copper paint would really make a nice pop of color. Which it did, in black & white. After I added all the bright colors the copper just looked out of place. SO, I decided to paint over the metallic with black and add more black in different areas.
Hmmmm. Well. Better? Maybe? But now what? I pondered it for a few hours and then decided I would add a layer of clear acrylic gel to get more texture on the surface and then probably add some more color once it dried. (This is the happy accident part!) I decided to put the gel on with my hands just for fun (although I did wear plastic gloves) so I smeared it on each painted section of the artwork. Once I’d covered them all then I went back to the first section and began to start roughing up the surface by patting the wet gel to make it stand up in peaks here & there. I had forgotten one slight detail though, I had used acrylic INK not acrylic paint. Acrylic paint dries in a permanent layer but today I discovered that acrylic ink well, it doesn’t! So when I began to work with the surface the color underneath began to lift & blend with the clear acrylic. So I just went with it….lift, blend, pat, smear, blend, even mixed colors in from one section to another.
It looks better than I could have imagined! Woo, hoo! I still have some other touches I want to add to it but I’m really happy at this stage. I’m waiting to see where it will lead me next. 🙂
The last thing I did today was to create some new mixed media/collage pieces on wood. After my delivery of all the wood boards I couldn’t resist working on some of them! I choose six of the 6×6″ square boards to work with, and ended up designing two sets of 3 pieces each from them.
I laid each set out next to each other and then began adding a selection of handmade papers to each set.
After the papers I decided to add a few extra touches to each set…bits of feathers, metallic string, beads. Although they weren’t dry enough to take final photos of them here is a close up of the group while it was still wet.
I will try to get them properly photographed so I can share them with you tomorrow. I hope to make more process with the mixed media wall art that I laid out today. Now that I know what pieces I want to place where it should move a little more quickly. Or that’s my hope, anyhow!
Until tomorrow,
Lynne
A Randomly Creative Blog 
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