Metamorphosis

I don’t like wasting paper or painting material so whenever I sample a new product or am unhappy with the type of paper I have, I make some use of it.  Some time ago, I bought some pastel-purpose paper online and was totally unimpressed with it; it was thin and the rough holey texture was annoying.  In another words it was cheap.  But why discard it?  And then I recently bought some stencil and had a bit of leftover paint from the previous work so thought I’d test the stencil on this paper I didn’t like.  And then I decided to see what I can do to develop it further…. et voila!

A typical layer by layer work which started from, as mentioned before, experimenting with a new stencil using leftover paints.  The paper not my usual thick mixed media kind but used for pastel drawing, and hence the bumpy texture .

I had the autumn leaves theme in mind so brushed on some orange and yellow Ecoline inks on top.  And great, I was pleased to discover that the ink did not smudge the layer below and still let the spots show through to give an interesting image.

I grabbed another stencil and began scraping some green paint on it with an old credit card, wiping down the excess with some kitchen paper.  At this point I was not too bothered with the paints bleeding since I was on my after the mood. Once dry, I began sketching in my design.

Mini Me again and a Micro Me standing side by side surrounded by bunny heads.  Can’t explain why I chose this but it all started with wanting to draw Mini Me again. Then thought, hmm, looks a bit lonely so I added a Micro Me. Currently being the change of seasons, this could well be a sign of growing a bit older too, from Micro to Mini, with the the bunnies representing innocence and hence resisting inevitable change…

So I proceeded in colouring the bunnies in Dylusions’ Laidback Lilac and decided to keep them as silhouettes floating around the background. No eyes, just simple silhouettes. And then I drew in some strokes in oil pastels outlining Mini Me and Micro Me, focusing on the hair. And painted the face too.

Once I finished painting, I added some details using stamped ink such as butterflies and leaves in orange and green to depict change to autumn. Using Uni Posca markers, I also doodled some tiny rabbit shapes and drew the eyes. Used gel pen for the details of the dresses.

But I felt the painting was still incomplete! What’s missing? I couldn’t figure it out so slept over it and the next morning decided maybe lightly spritz a final layer of green ink spray! Covered Mini and Micro Me’s first so they don’t get covered unnecessarily. Now I can safely consider the painting finished for the time being!

I like doing spontaneous work like this. Just go with the flow without any strict planning. Another fun part is analyzing myself as to why I came up with this painting in the first place. For me again, it’s getting in touch with my childhood whilst reluctantly having to experience the inevitable change in life or as one would call it, metamorphosis.