This week I have been able to carve out a bit of time in the evenings to create a few small pieces of mixed media art for a few mail art exchanges that I am part of. I had originally planned to make some sort of Valentine centered around the rocks. It just did not work out. I could not come up with something that was interesting to me. I've been reading through Mae Chevrette's art blog and so I had some of her images in my head. I find her work very inspiring, so I thought I could give it a try, even though I was working in 4" x 6", instead of on huge canvases. I also loved the pictures Ellie took in California. The pieces I created have a beach photo from Ellie and a picture of rocks from the Hoh Rain Forest in Washington that Ethan took and I manipulated in Photoshop.
I started out by putting down a turquoise wash on the white canvas board.
Next, I use nail polish remover to transfer the image onto the canvas. I had also searched out a few vintage California Beach images, old post card and photos, but they did not make the cut. When I tried to add them, it felt like too much was going on and the images were "fighting" with each other.
I've added ultramarine blue to the edges to give it a bit of depth at the edges. It is interesting to me how much this small act changes how I see the image.
I wrote out some of the words to "The Owl and the Pussy Cat" (... sailed off in a pea green boat...) here, knowing that this will become just texture later on since most of it will be covered. Many mixed media artists find old hand-scribed cards to fill this same need. I just did not have any and I did not want to loose any of the image to another layer of paper.
Toby absolutely insisted on being with me while I painted.
I painted in the undercoat of the text in an effort to have a true color for the fonts.
Here, you can see the benefit of adding that white under color.
I added two coats of the gold paint and outlined the letters with a scratch pen line. I tried to use a Sharpie to add those lines, but interestingly, Sharpie would not write on the modge podge surface so I used a gel pen.
The end product is not what I had in my head, but I am still pretty happy with it. I am also happier in general when I have a chance to make art.
On Friday afternoon after school I headed up to Two Hands Paperie in Boulder to the Origami Heart Folding event that Two Hands and Boulder Folders were hosting. It was a lot of fun. I folded a bunch of hearts.
I decided to tuck a few of them into the packages that I sent out today. I love sending out fun packages!
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