Measles

Poor girl!  But actually it was the first thing I thought of when I painted over this background.  Having been inspired by some works of other mixed media artists like Tamara Laporte and Traci Bautista, I recently bought some ink spray and stencils and wanted to experiment.  My first attempt was not really as successful as I had hoped but I refused to despair.  There’s always a first time for everything!  And besides, this gave me a chance to think of the next step.

Both the ink sprays and stencil are from Dylusions ordered from Amazon but I just discovered now there is a retailer in Holland so in future I ought to restock from there!  I found the blue a bit too harsh so I tamed it down by brushing a think layer of white gesso on the blue but left the yellow dotted portion as is.  And decided to paint in portrait rather than landscape for a change.  I further dispersed the colour blocks by stamping on some bubble-wrap patterns with the mini Distress Ink pads as you can see below.

I designed the girl in charcoal for a softer look, with any mistakes easily rubbed off.  Then painted the hair with acrylic firstly in Burnt Sienna and scraped a bit of Clear Granular Gel randomly on it.  Whilst waiting for the Gel to harden and dry, I worked on the face by blending the leftover Burnt Siena with Yellow Ochre and Titanium White, mixing it with Matte Medium and applying it with my finger, as I’ve seen some artists doing that.  I found it quite effective and really enjoyed that liberal moment.  Now I see why it’s done!

I continued painting the rest of the hair by brushing some Burnt Umber  over the Gel and for fun seeing what would happen if I also added a few strokes of Carmine Red over it.  How cool, it gave some dimension to the hair!  And here comes the fun part.  I also got hold of some pots of Dylusion Paints.  They are acrylic paints as well but come in a variety of bright and vivid colours.  I found them a bit messy to use as they are in large pots with wide mouths so one needs to be careful.  Nevertheless, the colours came out really sharp, evenly spread out, and a little goes a long way, as seen in the girl’s outfit (Funky Fuschia and Laidback Lilac).  I’ll definitely be ordering more colours!    On the bottom corners, I glued on some flower-patterned wrapping paper I got hold of from the art shop that wrapped my goodies.  So nothing goes to waste!

I continued the painting with glueing another collage on the top corner with the origami paper used from a previous work.  Then I painted the eyes by combining Burnt Umber with Permanent Green Deep and randomly doodled the background with some felt tip pens and adding some details on the girl’s dress with purple Gel Pen and Bronze Felt Paint.

So let’s see…. the whites of the eyes needed doing so I drew them in with my white Uni Posca felt pen.  Then figured the painting could do a bit more so I grabbed some rubber stamps and began adding some more patterns randomly.  And now…

I had a lot of fun today preparing this painting.  Experimenting with new ideas, trying out new products and just being adventurous.  And with any uh-oh’s like I had made in the beginning, I know there is always a way to recreate and have fun with it.  And give it an alternative theme.  Here, it’s called Measles because of the spotty face.  First thing that came to mind,  I hope she gets well soon!