More Mixed Media

Here's a little more from my mixed media class.  The point of this class is to experiment and try out different techniques.

This page was my attempt at crayon resist.  I held a hair dryer in my left hand, and in my right I drew with crayon stumps from my kids' crayon box.  I keep the heat on where I was drawing to make paper warm and the crayon melty, so I got a really intense color.  The wax hardened really fast, so I had to keep it hot.  My finger tips got a little toasty.  After that I washed it all with watercolors.  I love the intensity of the indigo paint.

The instructor recommended trying out samples of "anaglyptic" wallpaper.  I had never heard of that, but it is a paintable, textured walpaper and comes in every design you could imagine and more.  I found a place online offering two free samples with free shipping.  When it came, I couldn't wait to try it out.  

I used a strip of it on the  bottom of this page and really love the texture and design of it. I also used a little more of my plaster of paris (mixed with gesso) and a stencil, and some nice textured scrapbook paper that tears really well.  I made drippy watercolor runs over the top of it all, and at first I regretted my color choice-- Brown Madder paint looks exactly like blood... dripping... eeek! So I added some Dioxazine Violet.  Still... what does that say about the creative process?  Metaphorical for something... maybe...

This last was another experiment in resist.  I drew some zentangle designs with black china marker (grease pencil) and accented with white china marker and silver sharpie.  Then I tried some acrylic glaze base scraped around and laid plastic wrap over it to make it dry with a crinkly texture.  It turned out very subtle-- I think I should get some gel medium, it would probably work better than the glaze base.  After that was dry I removed the plastic and washed watercolor over it all, then stamped circles with silver and white paint and a plastic cap.  I mixed up some more of my plaster of paris with black and silver paint and scraped that around the edges and laid in a few little silver beads in the corners.  At the very end, I sprayed on this shimmer mister, but I regret that part because the surface was not porous enough to absorb the spray and it just got all splattery and I think it dulled the whole page.  Oh well, that is the point of experimenting!   I feel like my scanner didn't pick up the color and texture of this one so well... it looks better in real life.  It was a really fun page to do.