Monday, December 23, 2013

Mixed Media Waterlilies

This started out as an interesting experiment.  Several other watercolor artists and I get together once a month to paint and this month we decided to play musical easels.  We each arrived with a drawing on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper.  We started painting on our own painting and every 10 minutes or so we would rotate to the next painting.  We didn't look at the photo references so we didn't know what the original artist intended.  We just added whatever we felt the painting needed.

Unfortunately for my painting, I chose a piece of paper that had lost its sizing….again.  I wonder how many more pieces of bad watercolor paper I have in my stockpile.  Anyway, everyone was challenged when working on my painting because the paint just soaked in and couldn't be blended or controlled.

After we decided that all of the paintings were finished as much as they could be, I covered my painting with gesso using the technique that I learned from Kathleen Conover.  I knew that the paper needed to be sealed before the painting could move forward.  After the gesso dried, I proceeded to overwork the poor painting to the point of no return.

This will go in my pile of non-successful paintings but I know that if the paper had been normal, it would have been a very cool painting created by my very talented friends.

Here is how it looked before I added the gesso and gobs of paint:
It looks better in this photo than I remember it looking in person.  It was pretty washed out as I recall.

Here are the other paintings that we worked on during our painting day.
Peggy Moore's painting

Peggy Minger-McCants' painting

Sue Foat's painting

Susan Gale's painting

Usually when we get together each month, we each bring paintings that we are working on and we share our opinions and try to help and encourage each other.  It was fun to pick a project that we could do together and we all really enjoyed the experience.

I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and thank all of you that support me by visiting my blog and commenting on my paintings.  It means a lot to me.


8 comments:

  1. Quite honestly, I adore your painting, Nancy! I think it looks even better after you added the gesso (is that a clear gesso?). It has more depth and value since you added that layer. I love the idea of what you all did for your meeting. Everyone's paintings came out fabulous!

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  2. Thank you Sherry. The gesso is a mixture of about 1/2 white gesso, 1/4 water and 1/4 matte medium. I think I added a bit more water to make it more translucent.

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  3. I love the painting, and love that you were playing musical easels - what a fun idea!

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  4. I love musical easels! It sounds like a fun and very unique way to paint! I think the painting came out beautifully. Have a happy and healthy New Year, Nancy! I look forward to your work in 2014!

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    1. It was challenging to paint with no reference or idea of what the other artists had in mind when they did their drawing. I'm looking forward to your work also Hilda. Happy New Year.

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  5. I have seen this before and always it looks fun and the end results are sometimes surprising but always interesting. Kudos to you that you reworked it, they say you learn the most from the ones that you think didn't work. It came out very interesting, sort of batik look.

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    1. Thank you Nelvia. It was a fun experiment and a good learning experience.

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