I am rediscovering art materials that I have, but haven't used in a while, and also others that I've never used, and I am very blissful right now! Let me start out by showing a few of my textured papers starting with this one. I started out--putting an acrylic wash on very heavy cardstock paper (Golden fluid acrylic-- Aquamarine Blue--Great color!) It's hard to see the texture, but if you double click on these, you can see it better.
On this one I started out with Golden's Fiber Paste--it's almost like the soft molding paste, but when it's dry, it's very fibery like paper. And it's very flexible, which is what I wanted so that I could cut it up for collage.
I used a plastic stencil for the vines and flowers. This is just so easy to do--and fun. You just lay down your stencil, and apply an even layer of the paste over it with a palette knife, and then when you lift it up, you have your imprint. And the bottom right-hand corner was just random paste that I spread on and then scribbled in to...BUT...do you see what I see??
Well, I'll tell you what I see--a Bird--so I had to pull it out (thanks Mystele!)
And the rest of the paper---well, you know the rest--just have fun and add color, pencil, markers--whatever you want until you're happy--
I'm happy!! I also decided to put a layer of Matte Medium over it just to add durability when I use it. I know that I'll be cutting out the images for collage, and since I've never done this before with Fiber Paste--I want to keep it strong. But I have to say that the paper I use really takes a licking, but keeps on ticking. It doesn't matter how much water I apply, it remains strong. I get it at Staples (office supply store) and it's 110 lb weight. But you could use watercolor paper--or anything as long as it's durable.
And look at these papers--
Wonderful-Wonderful texture!! I'll show you how I did these in my next post.
Okay, now on to week 2 of the Strathmore journal workshop with Pam Carriker. What she had us do is define and shade our image with charcoal and over that add oil pastels--smudging all the way. Plus a little journaling and covering it with a gesso wash, and then adding a little more of the oil pastels. I think the toughest thing for me was the journaling part. I never journal my thoughts, but once I started, I couldn't shut up (kind of like the way I blog : )
I've never combined the 2 together (charcoal and oil pastels), but wow, do I love the results--I've already learned something new from journaling that I probably never would have tried
LOVE this effect!
I'm anxious to see what week 3 brings!
P.S. The Christmas cookies are now gone, and I am now going through withdrawal!
