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

Fairy Is Painted And On Her Way . . .

"Her Heart Always Leads Her Home"

8x10 mixed media on canvas board

Sold

I was excited to get her on canvas but unsure of the colors I would use. (as usual!) The magenta and yellow just kinda happened although I am not that pleased with how I placed the yellow. I used mostly caran d'ache water soluble crayons for this along with titanium white. Sometimes I forget how rich and creamy the crayons are so I added more yellow than I had wanted to but I think it does give her a nice glow! :)

I had planned on putting her in my etsy shop but she sold when I posted her pic on facebook. She will be on her way to a new home today and will be sharing wall space with my most recent angel painting along with 2 other past pieces. This man's daughters love my work and asked him to buy this one too! How cute is that!

I completed a new sketch for Gritty Jane's class so be on the lookout for that soon!

Have a great day!

xo

Still Life Is Finished!!

Thank you all so much for your supportive comments on my last post. Again I feel so grateful to have a wonderful community to share those feelings with who really "get it"!

I am excited to share my still life once again now that its complete. I lost count of how many times I painted over the flowers! That was quite frustrating but then I tried to realize that it is all a part of the learning process. Too bad my left brain is always working overtime! If you look at my last post you will notice that I changed the table so it didn't look as if the vase and candle were hanging onto the edge. I wanted more depth and with practice was able to achieve a look I was happy with. I did however need to step away from the canvas before I reworked it too much and potentially ruined all I had accomplished.

Hope you are all enjoying this day. I am off to get some dinner soon with hubby and then we are going to take the pug for a walk. The bad storms we had last night have left nice breezy weather behind!

Emerge . . . My First Layered Collage Painting!

"Emerge"

mixed media on 8x10 canvas board

As I said in yesterday's post I did alot of painting this weekend. This piece is my first attempt at a layered collage. I typically don't have patience for layers and I certainly could have added many more but I will take this as a first step! I initially was going to use this as a background for one of my face sketches but when it was done I decided to fill the blank space in the center with the tree. I used a couple of my own photos for the collage that were printed on plain paper.

The colors I used are not colors I am comfortable with either. I used some hansa yellow, phalto blue (gs) and nickel azo gold. I did begin with a first layer of payne's gray glazed over some stamped tissue paper and of course that got lost when I added the other colors. I used staz on ink for the first time and I love it.

This picture doesn't do it justice. In person there is more depth and some texture from the tissue paper. Hope you like it!