Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Wednesday - Well! This was fun!

Happy Wednesday. It's the middle of August already! Next week my grandson starts his senior year in high school. Hard to believe he'll be 18 soon. Be sure to check out Friday's blog post where I share his birthday present. I did NOT do a mosaic for him this time. That even surprised me. Hopefully he'll like it just as much. 🤞

Last week, I came across a YouTube channel by Shawn Petite. I feel like I'm always guided by the muse to find new things to try with painted papers and Ms. Petite did that.

She put quite a few painted papers she had made together to make a large sheet. She used a gel medium, which I think I'll just have to get soon. I didn't think I'd use it and so I never purchased any, but I now see, after trying her technique with a glue stick, the benefits of a gel for keeping the papers altogether would make this technique a little easier but honestly the glue stick worked just fine for my purposes.

This is what I did using painted papers on watercolor paper. It's thicker than copy paper or newsprint, two papers I use a lot when I am playing with the Gelli Plate and it's hard to work with in collage because of it's thickness but captures colors so well, I really like to use it once in a while.

In my enthusiasm to see it completed, I neglected to measure. I measured the pieces and found it was about 18-1/2 x 13 inches before cutting. 

 

 
 
The process from here is to draw, doodle, mark up the sheet in any way you want, with whatever you want. I picked some paint pens, Stabilo Woody's and some sketching crayons that feel like chalk (love those!).
 
At this point you cut the sheet up to a nice size to use either as pieces for future collage art, or even as a background for something. I managed to cut eight pieces.
 
 
Aren't these cool looking? I think a few could be framed just as they are. Some are going to go into art journals I'm sure but now I've just begun to play with this technique I may make a book from these pieces or use them as covers, or cut them up to use on my cards. So many possibilities!!!!! My brain is exploding with ideas.
 
The second one, I used the thinner papers I've painted. I ripped instead of cut out the pieces before gluing and didn't like the way it looked quite as much. But they'll be used I know in journals and collage art I've yet to make and the next one I do won't be ripped. This sheet measured 17-1/2 x 15 inches. These also were cut up into 8 pieces.
 

Adding the doodles is also a fun part for me. Just going wild with whatever I grabbed was a great way to loosen up and just GO!
 
I also think I like the watercolor paper one better so I'll make a few more of those.
 
All-in-all, I love this technique and will add it to my bag of tricks for ways to use painted papers. Thank you, Shawn for your inspiration! 
 
Best part: this was fun! 
 

Enjoy the journey.

Cindy aka EarthMotherMosaics

If you'd like to support the artist go to BuyMeACoffee and buy me a cuppa. It's always greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. 👄💝 

https://artbyearthmothermosaics.com


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