Paint Party Friday

I know I say this every week but really . . . its Friday again?! lol This week I continued with my she art class and also started a new abstract collage piece using my photography. The above canvas was a painting gone bad that I decided to use for a new piece. It had already been covered with black gesso and has soft gel medium which now is giving some texture to the canvas. The other night I just started throwing on some papers I had laying around, one of them is a tree photo of mine. I kept going till I liked the layout and yesterday I glued them all down with mod podge. ( I am in love with this stuff! lol)

I am a little antsy about having put the collage down on a black background but figure that I will probably cover it all up with paint anyway! Not sure yet of the color palette but I have it narrowed down to raw umber, titan buff, and some lightened payne's gray. Or black, white and a splash of red. What do you guys think?

Here is a photo collage painting I shared earlier in the week that inspired me to do a similar piece!

If you would like to see the progress of this painting click HERE!

So that is what I am up to lately! Can't wait to stop by and see what you are all sharing this week! And if you want to join us click HERE!

xo

New Photo Collage Painting . . .

"Seek Truth"

mixed media on 12x12 gallery wrapped canvas

available on etsy

I was pretty excited to share this painting and had to post it today! It felt really good getting back to combining my photography with mixed media. I used my tree photo that I shared for texture tuesday last week as well as its inverted image. Thought you would like to see how this came alive so here are a couple of photos showing its first stages. . .

This is how I laid down the collage. I really didn't know where it would go at this point but it took me a few minutes to find placement I was happy with. I printed out the photos on regular printer paper in black and white. And I used mod podge to glue all of them down. I am loving mod podge for collage!

This next photo is not great but I am still trying to figure out how to take good shots of my artwork! Typically I scan them but the size of this canvas prevented me from doing so. At this point I have added washes of burnt sienna and quinacridone nickel azo gold fluid acrylics. I also added some stamping as an attempt to incorporate my images into the background.

This was at the point I was scared to ruin the painting. The ugly stage almost stalled me out. But next I added payne's gray in different areas as you can see from the completed piece. I really love that color with the orange and yellow tones of the other colors. I also added more stamping with my favorite dogwood tree stamp and stenciled the butterflies on with the payne's gray. Lastly I used my caran d'ache crayons for shading. I like to use them dry and just scrub them out with a dry brush. The trees I extended down the canvas using a black pitt pen.

I feel very connected to this piece. The colors look dark yet dreamy and when I incorporate my photography it feels like there is more of me in there.

Hope you guys like it too!

xo