Last night was Lesson 5 for our weekly abstract art class. I’m learning and experiencing quite a lot and getting more confident in my painting, whilst getting more bold in my direction and even daring! Yesterday, we were pretty much left to our own devices, although our tutor, Dieter, gave us an assignment. Just use any stuff that comes to mind, reviewing what we had picked up so far and let our minds flow freely. We were to paint something that shows emotion. For instance, happiness, sadness, anger, dreaming, confusion, etc. So what shows emotion? The face of course. And whose face to draw but our kawaii Little One!
I was going to use black charcoal first for the drawing but decided to combine some oil pastels in two bright green shades. Although Dieter recommends those by Sennelier, we used the less expensive ones by Talens for this purpose. Oil pastel is sort of an old trick I’ve used in my earlier mixed media artwork. Once I draw with it, I spray it with finish and then paint over it with a water-based medium like ink or paint so traces of pastels show through. Looks cool and mysterious!
Here, I used various acrylic paints and inks, and some Ecoline ink. Also some modelling paste here and there for fun and to add some texture. The bright yellow was the ink by Amsterdam acrylic. Here, I used the accompanying dropper and randomly splashed some across the piece then moved the paper around and blew the ink around for some effect. The gold and both shades of pink were paints. Rather than a brush, I used a palette knife to spread the colours around for that choppy appearance. The combination of the pinks and golds worked rather well, but I thought adding some light blue would add some accent and “bind” the existing paint colours together with the green oil pastel sketch underneath. Some bubble wrap imprints were also made to break the monotony. Then I went over the eyes with oil pastel again and lightly traced Little One’s body with white 3D acrylic.
Whilst working on this piece I must admit really had no idea where I was going with it. It started with a scribble and then what next? Nevertheless I just kept going and going and experimenting with what I can find. One of those drawings that if anything goes wrong, it’s not the end of the world because I can use something else to fix it. Anyhow, I think it worked rather well in the end. It now turns out that Little One is in her own little world amidst the chaos of all the pink and bling. So what emotion do you reckon? Dreaming? Happy? Pensive? Or even spiritual?
My Kawaii Quarter 