Mixed Media Angel of Bliss Acrylic Painting

 Angel of Bliss

In this new painting I concentrated on lightening my palette.  I was tired of the darker and heavier colors that I had been using.  Limiting my palette to three basic colors, plus black, white, raw umber and light portrait pink really helped me to simplify my approach to this painting.  The three basic colors I used were quinicridone magenta, pthalo blue [green shade] and pthalo green [blue shade].   All the colors you see in the painting were mixed from these colors.  This insures that all the colors will relate to one another...None of that funny feeling you get when your colors are fighting and clashing.

I was pretty generous with my white paint, which kept the colors light and summery [like sorbet, as my daughter observed].  I had not used a retarding medium much in the past.   [I always wanted my work to dry at lightening speed.]  This time however, I used the retarder in order to make the blending of the background and skirt easier.  I'm now a devout convert to retarding medium.  I also added a bit of Flow medium to make my high velocity paints more fluid.  Matte medium is pretty much a constant in my mixtures to make sure the first layers, [usually pretty papers, stamps and vintage ephemera] can peek through. 

Please note:  white mixed with a color can make the mix too opaque.  Add matte medium to make it more transparent and test it out to make sure you won't be covering something you'll want to see.

Because I used a charcoal outline, it needs to be fixed before I apply the acrylic varnish, or it will smudge.  I'm not liking the fact that spray varnish is highly toxic.  Some artists I know use hairspray to fix delicate media just enough so that an acrylic varnish can then be applied over the whole canvas. I tried it and it works great!  Make sure to allow all applications to dry between coats.

Acrylic Mixed Media Painting in Layers

The e-course with Kelly Rae Roberts has finished in one sense but it will continue to grow my creative life in countless ways. This painting was made during the course, inspired by a photograph of me at about 15 with my Scottish Terrier, Junior. Cats have taken over my life now but every time I see a long haired fuzzy doggie, I melt.

This mixed media painting is layered with torn scrapbook paper and text from old books as a background. I used Claudine Hellmuth's acrylic paints mixed with Liquitex Matte Medium to glaze layers over the paper background. Claudine also has a matte medium in her line.

I built up the layers of transparent glazes for the girl and doggie. As I got to the final layers I made the glazes more opaque by adding a little white or by using less medium depending on the look I needed. Texture from layers of brush stokes and paper become more interesting as the process continues.

The final layer (the fine hair and the eyes and nose) for the doggie was created with black dimensional Scribbles paint. Paint by Tim Holtz that dries to a crackle finish was used all around the edges of the painting to give an aged look. Gold metallic paint, Tim Holtz Grungeboard letters , and an antique key are the final touches.

If you want to know anything more about the process, please leave your question in the comment section.

A is for Art

Here is another example of one of my favorite techniques of collage art. Claudine Hellmuth is one of the most prominent artists using this technique today. It consists of gathering vintage photos and using part of that photo, usually the face of a relative or in the case of the above art piece, oneself. Yes that is a photo of me in one of the cute little hats my mother made for me. The face is mine as well as the hands. The rest of the piece is drawn, painted and collaged. I started with a heavy application of white gesso onto an 8"x10" stretched canvas to provide the texture, then added the blue for the sky with Liquitex acrylic paint, a dark turquoise green for the ground with a lighter, more neutral green brushed lightly on top to reveal the darker green underneath. The purpose of the different layers and the texture is to create more interest than just one solid smooth color could do.

The band across the top was created by layering different papers and distressing them with Distress Ink Pads. I used a commercial rubber stamp for the letter "A", and outlined it with dimenional Scribble Paint in gold. I hand lettered the word "Art". The word "Love" was hand stamped onto a sheet of shrink plastic and heated in the toaster oven until it thickened and shrank in length and width to about 30% its original size. Again, I outlined the shape with dimensional paint in gold.

Simple shapes were drawn and cut from decorative papers for the dress and feet. A little bit of line drawing was done with a waterproof fine tipped felt pen for the shoes and socks and the number on the dress was stamped onto paper and outlined with the gold dimensional paint. All collage elements were adhered using either Liquitex acrylic matte medium or gel matte medium depending on the heaviness of the material. As I went along I coated all collage elements with the matte medium as I adhered them and brushed on the medium over the entire canvas when I finished the piece. The number 12 refers to the date of my birth in case you didn't guess. And I don't mean 1912. I mean the day of the month. That's all I'll say.

I would be glad to answer any questions about the techniques used in creating this piece. Just leave me a note in the comments section for this post.