Mixed-Media Painting: Lavender and Blossoms

I've had some ideas for paintings like this swimming around in my head for a while, and for some reason I haven't made one until now.  But when I've thought of doing such paintings, the color purple or lavender was definitely NOT on my mind.

 I wanted to make something for the final week of Louise Gale's Creative Color Challenge, but I was intimidated when I learned that the color was lavender.  I love lavender plants, I think they are beautiful and smell fantastic,  but it is not a color that I normally use in my artwork.  I guess that's why it's called a challenge : )

I started by plastering the top 2/3's of a 6 1/4" x 11 1/4" wood board with Golden' light molding paste, using an old credit card as my "trowel".   I used the same technique to smear Golden's crackle paste (love!) to the bottom 1/3.  While still wet I drew the design into it with a pencil, and used the credit card to create the straight lines.

When dry I painted the lavender background.  Originally this piece was only going to be lavender and white, but I remembered that for this week's challenge we could add any of the past challenge colors, so I added a soft sea green and some raspberry red.

On the bottom right corner I added a small square of silver leaf torn from a Japanese washi paper.  Once it dried overnight, I sealed it with a matt sealer and then antiqued it lightly with a raw umber glaze.  I did this to bring out the cracks and grooves a bit more, and make the colors not quite as "bubble gum".  The camera (or photographer ;) ), was having trouble capturing the true colors, but this is close enough.  They are a bit more "dirty" in person.

So what I thought was going to be a project that I would want to give to the nearest passerby once done, ended up being one of my favorites!  Now I love the color lavender and am already planning on using it in more of my work.  Thank you Louise for that!  What I realize is that I could probably use any color in my work, as long as I learn how to make it "Esther".

 I also am realizing that plaster or molding paste is one of my favorite things to use.  I've used it many times like on this piece here, and on my sister's 3 other pieces (which I still have to share with you), and I really feel like that's the way my artwork is going to keep heading.  I had a blast creating this piece and want to make many more like it.  And using plaster takes me back to my favorite finishes from my faux-finishing days, so whenever I miss it, I could just whip out a very large canvas and get plastering!

Mixed- Media Painting: To The Sea-Green

Here is my mixed-media painting for Cathy Nichols' Found Art Friday and Louise Gale's Creative Color Challenge.   They decided to combine them since the two went together so well.  The Found Art Friday theme is "To The Sea", and the Color Challenge theme is "Sea-Green".

I immediately knew I wanted to paint waves, but when I started to work on it this Tuesday I was not very happy with where it was headed.  Yesterday when I worked on it, I started by painting over what was already there (3 smaller waves) because it didn't have the impact that I wanted.  When I painted this larger, more graphic wave I immediately liked it better.

 I added the "spray" by rubbing on Golden's Fiber Paste with my finger.  When dry, I rubbed a bit of Heavy Gel Medium in a gloss, to add a bit more sheen in areas.  It still didn't look finished, so I added the border around it.  I did this by 1st wetting a stamp, then rubbing over it with a black water-soluable(WS) crayon.  I sprayed it with more water then stamped it on, then I rubbed out some areas with a wet paper towel to soften it.  I then took black and then white WS crayons and outlined the border here and there.

For the Color Challenge you have to use only shades of sea-green, along with black and white if you want, and this week Louise said we could also add metallics.  I added painted cheesecloth in the bottom corner, and added a few objects that looked like they were found in the ocean....a smashed piece of copper pipe (hey, you never know), a silver shell, sea glass, and a brass ring, along with some copper wire.  To balance it I added a copper tack to the other three corners.

I'm not sure if it's finished yet, I feel like I need to work on the border a bit more, but I'll see what happens when I step away from it for a bit.  If I change anything, I'll show you a picture of it later.

I'm off to go to the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach (a wonderful art show)!  I'm so excited!  Woohoo!  There are some amazing artists every year, can't wait to see what they came up with this time.  Bye.

Umm...yeah, I'm back and yes...I need to fix the border.  I'll post pics when it's done.