Sunday, October 10, 2010

Oil pastel experiments

I'm learning!


Remember this from yesterday? One of my one centimetre paintings. Well, they were designed to be inspiration points, so since I had time to paint today I took this one and turned it into this:

Oil pastel on watercolour paper
I finally got out my oil pastels to play. I laid down the background and then etched in the wobbly doodle with an unused nail file. I neglected to measure for squareness.

I could have left it there, but I was unhappy with the level of contrast and was game to experiment more. I had no idea where I was going and it was rather scary to do what I did next.


Storm blue acrylic gouache over oil pastel on watercolour paper
My first true mixed media attempt. And it failed miserably. I was attempting to etch in the doodle lines darker. It worked on a test, but I think I had the paint too thick on the actual piece and when I scraped it off...well, it was okay, but definitely not what I was looking for.

Now at this stage in the past, I probably would have dropped it and stormed off, considering it a failure. But there is one thing that some of tou have taught me in these past few months...never give up. If it isn't working, keep working until it does. The beauty of mixed media is that you can layer upon layer upon layer.

But I was stuck for inspiration. What I had was a multi-green piece of paper with blue splotches all over it. What do I do? Time was a factor, so seeing that it needed an object focus, I reverted to an old painting favourite and drew from my brain. I was quite happy with what it turned out to be.

Transparent Lily, Oil pastel and acrylic gouache on watercolour paper, approx. 200 x 170 mm
If you look carefully, you can see the blotchy background underneath. Did I need to do all that work beforehand? Maybe. In any case, I've now learnt a bunch of new things and have a new little painting to show for my efforts.

And where was Izzy during this? Beside me :D


More experiments to come.

Nutty
(exploring)

8 comments:

  1. Wow, you're on fire girl! The thing about layers is that the energy of the under-ones is there so no only do you have the visual effects on the surface, you have the oompf underneath.

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  2. Love your lily! That was a HUGELY brave move to paint over with the blue gouache....but then this beautiful lily would not be in existence had you not! :)

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  3. Woops - just wrote you a comment but the computer ate it up! I'll try again - but sorry if it gets doubled!

    I just read your comment on the CED blog - welcome to CED2010. I've found it an invaluable support & source of inspiration - hope you will too!

    It was great to see your work through all the stages. Well done for having the faith to keep going. I loved the doodle start and the beautiful end result!

    It is sometimes hard as a Mum to find time for ourselves. Izzy looks a darling little girl - beautiful!

    Kat :-)

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  4. Lovely work, and so great to see your process of moving through what appears to be a disaster into creating a beautiful piece of art. Totally agree with the earlier comment about the energy of the under layers shining through.

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  5. The green one turned out wonderfully! Love the texture, an amazing effect! The lily is lovely as well!

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  6. Thanks so much for all your encouragement! You've dared me to continue playing :D

    Nutty
    (having fun)

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  7. such a lovely painting and i just love your explanation of process. i adore that blotchy blue!

    happy creating!
    xoxo, juliette

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