I finished another small, mixed media painting for a potential kid's class. I used collage (book text, printed photo of fox, ribbon), hot glue for texture, acrylic, and ink. For my adhesives I used Mod Podge, but I highly recommend Golden Matt Medium. It has a better texture, lower odor, and faster drying time.
Let's get started!
I started with an 8"x10" canvas and collaged a background of scrap-booking paper.
Torn book text was applied to add texture and variety.
I cut three pieces of ribbon. I moved them around quite a bit to figure out where I wanted them to go.
Once I decided, I then saturated the ribbon with Mod Podge and placed them. They wanted to curl up so I tore a piece of wax paper, covered the canvas with it, and stacked books on top to flatten the image.
With black paint and a small brush, I outlined the edge of the book text.
Starting with the background, I began to paint.
Colors used:
Magenta
white
black
yellow ochre
nickel azo gold
I start to paint the book text. Colors used:
green gold
white
I also paint over the ribbon to increase contrast.
White paint (later I will use yellow orange as well.)
Time to print off some silhouettes! I chose foxes because I love their energy.
I printed them off in 3 different sizes to give myself options with my composition and scale.
(foxes cut out)
First one is too big!
That's better. I did move the photo around a bit before deciding where to place the fox.
Mod Podge used to collage it on the canvas.
I used hot glue all over the background creating strings and bumps of clear texture.
Started to paint the fox with a yellow orange.
To add contrast between the fox and the background, I painted the surrounding area white. You can start to see the texture of the hot glue once it is painted over with white (bottom left).
I decided that I wanted to use a complimentary color scheme instead of what I had going on. So that required me to add blue to the top of the canvas. I also splattered white to give the appearance of stars.
Dont forget to paint your edges if you're not spending the money on framing the art.
I went back and forth with myself about whether or not to use words. The risk is that is controls the viewpoint from which others see the painting. But I decided I wanted to anyway! Using ink, I drew/wrote the words. With black paint I painted over much of the ink and then splattered the paint around the area to grunge it up a bit.
Thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
Stephen Lursen