Color Palette Experiments

Well, I have been off the air for a week.  Have you missed me?  Unfortunately there was a death in my family which took me out-of-town for a few days.  I returned for the long weekend but was unable to get myself immediately back into the swing of things.  However, while not posting, I did play with some postcards upon my return.  I placed a number of different acrylic colors on my palette and each of the following postcards came from those paints.  For the  first one I applied color with a palette knife working layers of color over and over until they blended and mixed.  I finished it by coloring on it with oil based water soluble crayons.  They gave some depth to the color that I really liked.  Descriptions follow each of the last three.

For this on, above, I took paint and swirled it and dabbed it on my palette and then pressed my card onto it.  I did that a few more times until I had covered the surface fully.  I loved the random shapes and interplay of color.

This one (above) was cut from the palette that I used to make the one above it.  It looked interesting, so I cut it out and glued it down.  In the process of smoothing it onto the card, some of the areas smudged and softened a bit which gave a nice effect.

This last one was accomplished by dragging my card through and across the remaining paint daubs on my palette.  Everything blended and there is great movement.  It reminds me of wild surf at the ocean.

Jungle Parrot

I started this piece with the drawing at the lower right.  I enhanced it by adding the pale green”foliage” that rises up behind my parrot.  I painted in the background in a majenta as I am trying not to use so much blue!  It gave me the feel of a jungle so I decided to add a parrot.  I traced the parrot from a postcard and painted it in watercolor.  My favorite part is actually the bottom of the parrots tail, painted in yellow, with my drawing showing through.

Ssssssh – Not Another Word

Okay, an unusual name.  But really, look at this piece.  I see two profiles facing each other with a hand between them.  It looks to me like the person on the left is saying sssshhhh, and motioning to the person on the right to say quiet.  I put this together with paper towel and paint.  I ripped up the paper towel and glued down the shapes.  Once they were dry I applied paint very lightly to the surface just hitting the higher textured areas lightly.  What I find fascinating, though, is the tableau that emerged.  Yes, typically all my cards are vertical, but I had to make an exception.  However, it will have to be vertical for the gallery.  Oh well.

 

Watching Chaos

I formed this from some pieces of pages I had ripped from a magazine ages ago.  I crumpled and glued and ripped and and pulled off various pieces until the entire surface was covered.  I loved the colors and the shapes of letters without really forming words.   There were masks and faces whose eyes are visible in parts of the resulting collage.  That’s where I chose my “Watching Chaos” title from.  The eyes seem to be witnesses and players in this frenzy of art making.  Hope you are enjoying the day…

Spring Shoots and Sunshine

Ah, my mind must be on the garden I have yet to plant.  I painted this card in the most wonderful shade of chocolate-brown.  It made me think of chocolate mousse!  I stamped it with some gold and then drew into the gaps of the stamp markings with green sharpie.  From there I used another brown (sort of like the inside of a three musketeers bar) mixed with some matte medium to add some broad, brush strokes.  I added some water to gold acrylic and did a wash but used too much water.  I waited a few minutes and dabbed some gold on with a paper towel.  Golden sunshine nurturing tender, green shoots.

Molten Meltdown

Here is a bright piece for a beautiful, sunny day.  I started with some gesso that is sort of dried out and THICK.  I coated the card with this and then painted vertical sections of yellow, orange and red watercolor.  I textured the surface with some plastic and let it dry.  I then applied some watery red watercolor and let it meander over the surface.  Once that dry I painted over the resulting lines with gloss medium and added some glass bead medium to a few sections.  I finished by adding some blue watercolor lightly to the glass bead areas.  The glass beads light up when photographed which makes the photo interesting if not dead on accurate.

 

Jungle Orchids

The dark lines make me think of the jungle – like jungle vines.  The bright shapes brought orchids to mind.  I started by applying matte medium to a magazine page and gluing it to a piece of white paper.  When I peeled it off I got a thin layer of the white paper with ghost images of the original page through it.  I used one of my stamps to create the black lines and then used some yellow and red watercolor to add a few bold shapes.

Ribbons and Roses

At the very base of this piece is a yellow paint marker which I used to make a cross hatch design.  That, of course, has been fully obscured.  I took red watercolor and thickly laid it over the surface leaving a gap just off of center.  I put some thick gesso down the gap and dabbed over the remainder of the card.  I pressed wax paper on the gesso and then swirled all the paints with my palette knife.  Then I continued to dab the gesso over the entire surface blending the red and the gesso.  I finally finished it by painting some red ribbons along the right edge.  A nice bright start to the day.

 

Spring Earth

For todays work I started by painting raw sienna over the entire surface.  I pressed it with wax paper to give it some texture.  Once it dried I colored on it with blue, brown and yellow crayons to pick up the textural lines.  To brighten it a bit I applied a thin wash of yellow watercolor.  To finish it I glued on a strip of wax paper down the left side that had some colors on it that seemed to work well.  I called it spring earth because it seemed to have a richness  of newly turned earth and the hints of color speak to the good things to come from it as the season matures.

Azaleas Through Spiders Web

For this collage I started with a piece of page torn from a magazine.  I crumpled it and sanded it and then repeated that once again.  From there I took some red-violet ink and applied it over the surface.  To that I added some green ink.  The combination of those two colors reminded me of my azaleas.  I took some white acrylic and rubbed it lightly across the surface leaving a web work of white that reminded me of a spider’s web.  It’s a glorious day outside and we’ll be firing up the grill soon.  Hope you’re enjoying your day wherever you are.