Different Moods, Different Media

What I love about art: all the different media! You can choose to work with whichever one you feel like using on any given piece. Such freedom! :) I've included a few examples to show you what I mean.

The top piece is called, "Roses For A Blue Lady". It's 14" x 19" painting on watercolor paper. This was my first foray into watercolors. I've been flirting with them but just never got it. I've always thought of them as too washed out. But I've been studying different watercolor artists that have produced the most amazing results. Pair that with Monica Zuniga's current workshop called Inspire Me (how appropriate!) and I was ready to wade into the world of watercolor.

This is a drawing I sketched onto a background collaged with music sheets. Then I started the experiment. The secret was the combination of watercolor paint, watercolor pencils and white acrylic paint. Voila! Perfect blending/shading of the watercolors. Her entire face is done with just those three items (plus a decoupaged piece of napkin on her forehead). I also added some foil strips to her hair. The background is a mix of acrylic paints and more decoupaged napkins.

I love the look of the watercolors when the white paint blends them out. Monica is an awesome teacher and the face she produced on her painting was exquisite! I wanted to try immediately. I'm pretty happy with this one. ;)

Next is a piece I painted onto Plexiglas (inspired by Gary's workshop). I drew the image onto the Plexiglas and then painted it with acrylic paint and opaque markers. That's it. The watercolor effect you see on the sky background is a CitraSolv page collaged onto a wood panel. When the Plexi piece was placed over that background, it gave the cool watercolor look. All that needs to be done now is to drill holes in the Plexi and attach it to the board. Voila! Cool Plexi art! I call it "Sideshow".

Now onto more encaustics. This first piece is called "Fly". It's just encaustic paint in multiple layers with encaustic medium. That's it. Then I incised some lines with a cutting tool and filled those in with oil paint. After rubbing away the excess oil paint, Voila! Cool encaustic art!!

And even with encaustic art, there are still options. Here is another wet shellac burn. I call this "Grounded". While you can Fly with the freedom of the pure encaustics on the first piece, this one is more earthy and keeps you Grounded. I loved the colors in the shell bead that I had and wanted to incorporate those into the piece. Then I added some polished stones at the bottom.

So that's a little of what I've been dabbling with this week. Lots more on the way using different media. Tonight: I'm experimenting with encaustic plus Pan Pastels. I saw this technique on the web and have to give it a try. Stay tuned!