So I began Exercise 2 of the mixed media workshop from Tracy Verdugo’s book, “Paint Mojo”. Great to have some inspiration and always fun to initiate some variation. After all, that’s what being creative is about, isn’t it?
Instructed to write in dark colour on a blank paper, “Making Marks, Making Meaning”. Then developing the work by adding random scribbles and symbols with two of my favourite colours of acrylic paint and another favourite plus a white colour for oil pastels.
The idea of the oil pastels resisting the water from the paint didn’t work too well especially with the white pastel, unfortunately. And I didn’t like after all the two “favourite” colours I chose (deep red and blue), regretting that I should have gone for a secondary-type colour. So at this point I decided to “disguise” the issue by using some stamps, like butterfly shapes and random patterns. Still meh.
However, the next set of instructions got us to create mini paintings within this painting by using a hand-made “viewfinder” from cardboard (using two L-shaped corners) to frame various cropped areas. I did in fact discover some parts of the painting I liked. Now we’re talking! For each of these mini paintings, we were encouraged to play around with them. I decided to give a bit of a green wash for the large piece and outlined in white ink the bits I wanted to stand out. For instance, that bunny face.
The exercise stops there, but I took a step further and decided to make a collage out of the mini paintings I cut out. Purposely scrambled each piece for this “random” effect and glued it on another paper on which I made a gold background using a roller. Added finishing touches with some coloured tissue papers.
I feel more could be added but am not sure what. Am rather reluctant to go overboard since that would draw the attention away from the “randomness” of the mini paintings. Perhaps another day I may be able to go back to it and figure it out. But for now, here it is!
My Kawaii Quarter 