Wednesday - What's on the art agenda this week?

This month I'm not taking a break like I have been doing. I'm still following the moon and its phases and using the intentions I feel are important. At this time, I feel it's more important to stay connected with those who follow along with me and walk the artistic path as I go. Welcome to my art journey discoveries. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Honestly, I hadn't started out making painted papers yesterday but as always, it's what I end up doing.

I've been trying to prep cards for collage fun. In the past, I painted all of them white. Clean slate kinda thought. But it turned out I am more productive and see a more pleasing starting point if things are black. Very odd. I like to doodle on white paper but I want to collage on black substrates. I do not understand it, but I definitely go with it.

After I painted quite a few in the black acrylic, I had leftover paint. No surprise, I always do. I grabbed my Gelli plate and decided to look for some kind of something to use for a design. I have a lot of somethings, but I just wasn't feeling the desire to use the ones I've used before.

Imagine my delight when I found some egg cartons I'd kept to sort glass and beads. I saw someone do this, it wasn't my idea and if I knew where I saw it and who did it first, I'd give them credit. I'm so happy with the result.

 I made more painted papers until my bed was filled up once more. When I get to the point where my pillows are, I try to stop because I don't have the room anywhere else (the floor, yes, but animals live here, so nooo).

 One of the fun things I do is spray some water on the Gelli plate just enough to get the paint activated again. I grab some watercolor paper and do some swirls quickly on the plate with the paper, not pushing, just moving it from side to side.

 ACK! I freakin' love these! They look like storm clouds or a weather map of a storm. Maybe both.

I don't know when I'll use these papers but I'm so happy to have tried this technique. I'll definitely keep doing it with different colors. Maybe the neon colors should be next! 😁

 

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

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