Down By The Seashore

Of course, by now, you know how much I love the sea and I felt drawn to create (haha! "drawn" to create) more sea themed works and incorporating a little of what I've learned through the art of Zentangle. 

"Sea Stars" - 5x7 - Mixed Media Collage

I know you can spot the lines of Zentangle right away. It was a lot of fun creating this starfish that way. I also had a lot of fun working on the background. I took a canvas, wrapped it in an old dress pattern, melted and swirled crayons over that and then wrapped the whole thing in cheese cloth. Why, you may ask? Why not!

This is the canvas after it was prepped. The melted crayons are so much fun to use and they add a nice texture to the piece.

II also couldn't resist adding some sparkles of vintage glass glitter to my sea pieces. This is an item that I stumbled across in my favorite store, The Paris Market & Brocante.

This is the prepped canvas for the second piece in the series which I finished last week. Once again, old dress pattern, melted crayons and cheesecloth.

"Little Red Sea Star" - 5x7 - Mixed Media Collage

Wordy Hydrangea

"Wordy Hydrangea" - 6x6 - Mixed Media Collage

OK, time to get back to talking about  my artwork. I've had fun setting up my new studio in Savannah and experimenting with new materials. I never thought for a moment I could get such great results from the most prosaic items.

The image you see above began with an inexpensive wrapped canvas. I further wrapped it in a sheet of newspaper and then to that I applied a scrubbed on layer of latex wall paint that I found among the paint samples at Lowe's. Then I made random swirly patterned designs with gold glitter glue and wrapped all of that in a layer of cheesecloth which I had dipped in acrylic metallic paint. 

Next I took a quilting iron and pressed it against some crayola crayons in various shades and let it drip onto a sheet of newsprint; using the iron to then swirl the drips around. After the crayon wax dried, I cut the newsprint into leaf shapes.

The hydrangea blossom itself is made from randomly tearing magazine photos selected for their colors so I could create a range of tonal values from light to dark. I accented selected blossoms with glitter glue and gold fabric paint, outlined the leaves in fabric paint and then, of course, splattered the entire piece in a wash of gold metallic paint. Fun!!!

Oh, and did you notice my new signature? I developed that while launching a self-study course on the art of Zentangles. More about that in a future post. ;)

Experimentation

I was playing around a bit in the studio today. I have  this idea of making art from common items. For one thing, I have a new studio with far fewer supplies than I've had in the past. So I experimented today with newspaper, cheesecloth, sample indoor house paints from Lowes, wallpaper and crayons. I had hours of fun seeing what I could come up with.

The image I've posted here was something I created in my sketchbook. The background started out with the house paints (they are daubs from where I cleaned my brushes). Then I applied a layer of cheesecloth on top of that. Next I used a piece of Japanese kinwashi (I know, I know... not exactly prosaic) and I used a quilting iron to melt crayons and a small paint brush to apply the melted wax to the kinwashi to create the image of a pear; thus creating my own style of encaustic painting. 

And true to my signature style, I splattered the entire image with a coppery metallic paint.

I rather like the end result and I can imagine that you'll see me using a similar process with similar materials in the future.