It's Complicated Water Color Skin

Happy PPF and Sneak Peek Friday!

This piece is called It's Complicated because, well, it was a complicated process. In fact, I can't fully remember all the steps. You can skip the process part and jump to the painting if you want. I totally understand!

It started with a watercolor skin made from some left over paint on my palette. I added torn cheese cloth and part of a used dryer sheet both of which I dyed with a watery red paint mixture prior to applying (it's possible that the left over paint was from dyeing the cloth).

The skin dried orange, instead of red, so I added red to the back of it (which didn't do much). I added crimson glaze to the front to bring the red tones out which helped. When I removed the skin from it's backing, it stretched and rippled (which I liked).

I thought it needed more texture and wanted to echo the rippled/stretched effect. Actually, I wanted an excuse to use my new glass bead gel, so this was it. Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen introduced me to Glass bead gel, and let me tell you, I have a bit of an addiction. I added random pieces of dried glass bead gel (painted with crimson glaze) to the piece, then decided to try to sculpt it by draping it over pencils and leaving it to set for a few days. It's more dominant than I intended, but it definitely added interest.

The water color skin is transparent, so I added strips of transparencies which were printed with a picture of a flower and it's green leaves. I also mono printed the paper with the dashes on it using Acrylic Open Medium with paint, a brayer and a texture plate for opacity.

I had no idea what color to paint the canvas before applying the watercolor skin, so I asked hubby (who has an art background) and he suggested Pthalo blue (green shade). This was an unhappy accident as it washed out the water color skin and rendered it useless. So, I added an interference color to reflect the light back out through the water color skin which saved the piece.

And there you have it. Whew!! Like I said, it's complicated!

I'm also working on a piece for the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. You can visit the challenge here. I'm painting a large canvas from a picture of my daughter, Mackenzie, the first time I took her High Tea. If you need a laugh, you should check out Mackenzie's rules for tea. Here's your sneak peek pic. I wrote a poem for the piece called If Alice had a Sister. Finally, I'm adding words to a painting!

I can't wait to blog hop this weekend and see what everyone is up to! I have a nasty cold and a date with my bed for some much needed rest this weekend. It's the perfect excuse to spend my day getting my art fix on!