So August was a little bit of everything with my art-making, not to mention, I'm a little down watching summer come to an end (however I love Fall!) I started out getting out my paints and paper and not over-thinking......
I used 110lb cardstock that I painted first with black gesso and then I took some of my favorite stencils with bright contrasting colors--love the look!
Next I experimented with my gel plate. I first got my background color on the plate with stencils and different colors--
and then I made templates to use as masks for the plate--
--added a solid color (in this case, purple) and laid down the original paper and here was my result--
I decided to use my Posca Pen (a new love, because it's permanent and it's paint!) to outline some of the images. So what I did after was basically cleaning up the gel plate. The image of the masks were still on the plate and they were dry. So I knew that they would transfer on to the paper nicely if I added more paint on top of them on the gel plate, and I really like the result-(this was done on plain white paper)--
...a ghost print of the images--I like it!
These papers were practice for a little bit of what we will be doing at our Art Retreat coming in early September. We have this retreat every year and we really enjoy coming together for the purpose of nothing else but to make art for 3 solid days. This year will be a bit different, to say the least, but it is happening. There will be a total of 8 of us, and we'll each have our own 8 foot table at a wonderful location not too far from my home .
This year I will be teaching 2 separate projects. The first one will be faux encaustics. I've never worked with real encaustic before, mainly because of the cost, so I did some researching on the faux part, and I found one technique that worked for me, and here's the result--
this was made with layers of gel medium--great effect!! And here's another variation--
I love how the layers come through.
And the next project is going to involve my new venture with polymer clay. I wanted to learn how to use polymer clay so I could add it to my mixed media pieces. Here's the piece we will be working on--
--and here's where painting papers come in. They are the background of the piece and the polymer clay accents are the addition. When I first started teaching myself this medium I wanted to transform my painted whimsy art into clay form.
I made the birds in my art journal first and then I made them into polymer clay.
But this project isn't exclusive--I'll bring some more variations with me--
I want to show how versatile polymer clay is--basically you can bring your own voice to it.
--some more playing around with this very fun and very forgiving medium.
So for the most part, this is what has been keeping me busy the last few weeks, along with other art here and there. My main focus, however, is the art retreat. It's important right now to keep yourself healthy in these times, but also to keep your mind healthy too and for me that's some art therapy! Stay safe everyone.
