Friday, July 31, 2015

Experimenting with texture

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch 140 lb cold press watercolor paper 
This painting is on un-gessoed watercolor paper. I wanted to see the behavior of the fluid and high flow acrylics on the un-gessoed surface. I started wet into wet, and let the paint flow. After layers of stencils I decided to experiment with glass bead gel and fiber paste. I also used stencils to apply gel medium,  which served as a resist for a glaze layer of phthalo blue. You can still see a hint of this layer in the corners.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Floral Collage

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on Canson art board 
 This is my first time painting on Canson Arches art board. I gessoed it before stenciling then dripping high flow paint. Then I collaged some flowers I printed on my ink jet printer. I considered adding some glass bead gel but decided against it. I'm not sure if I like the glazes I used to tone down the background.  Below are some photos of the painting in earlier stages.



Thursday, July 23, 2015

See the birdie

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 
Here's a whimsical painting I finished last night. This one started with drips and blooms of Golden high-flow acrylic paint. I started to see birds in the resulting underpainting, so I took it in that direction with pastel pencils,  collage and paint.

Here are a couple of photos of the painting in earlier stages:


Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Experimenting with mixed media on watercolor paper

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch 140 lb cold press watercolor paper 
I'm trying other surfaces. I just bought some Canson Art Board, which is Arches watercolor paper mounted to what appears to be mat board,  but I didn't want to use it until I experimented first. So I did this one on a similar unmounted watercolor paper. This painting started with gesso followed by drips of high flow acrylics and stencils. I also wanted to try using clear gesso as a ground for pastels.  It worked Ok but my attempt to 'fix' the pastels with matte medium wasn't to my liking. As I suspected might happen,  the pastel pigment was darkened by the medium.  I ended up augmenting the pastels and medium with fluid acrylics. The pastel definitely added to the intensity of the colors.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Summer Wildflowers

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 12 x 16 inch canvas panel 

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 
 Today I finished a couple more mixed media paintings. The first one, my impression of purple coneflowers (echinacea purpura) started out with red fluid acrylic paint that I textured with plastic wrap, followed by several layers of stencils, stamps, glazes and one large collage element, tracing paper to which I had been applying leftover paint.

The second painting,  rudbeckia, started with a layer of patterned tissue paper followed by several layers of stencils and glazes.

The photos below show the final stage of each painting,  before painting the flowers. I considered stopping at this stage for both paintings.



Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Sailing

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 12 x 16 inch canvas panel 

Today's painting started out with some texture I added to the canvas with crumpled tissue paper and gesso. I painted some reds and yellows then let it sit for several days before I decided to turn it into an abstract of sailboats.

Here is the underpainting:

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Funky Flowers

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel

I'm still trying to get the hang of the mixed media creative process. I started this painting with a collage of patterned tissue paper, then I pulled out the paints and stencils and started to paint.  I've been switching between this painting and a couple others. 

Here are some of the intermediate stages:




Friday, July 10, 2015

Centerpiece

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 
 I'm still experimenting with mixed media, and I'm trying some of the techniques in Acrylic Solutions,  written by Chris Cozen and Julie Prichard. For this painting I used a brayer to apply the first layer of paint. After I brushed on a second layer I let the shapes that emerged inspire me.

The photos below show the various stages and layers.


I used scraps of painted tracing paper that I had stenciled and stamped with leftover paint for the flowers and leaves. This is what it looked like before I glazed the final layer.

Monday, July 6, 2015

Fireworks

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 12 x 16 inch canvas panel 
 This painting is the result of many layers of texture, stencils and acrylic paints and mediums. I started by applying molding paste through a stencil, followed by drips and runs of Golden high flow acrylics. In later layers I wanted to see what would happen if I mixed acrylic paint loosely with matte medium and applied it with a palette knife to partially obscure the layers beneath.

The photos below show the painting in earlier stages.



Saturday, July 4, 2015

Aquarium

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 12 x 16 inch canvas panel 
Here's another mixed media experiment. I started this painting with a collage of tissue paper scraps that I had painted and stenciled with paint left over from previous paintings. Here is what it looked like before I painted it:


Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Mixed media experiments

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 

Since I'm in mixed media mode, I spent some time preparing some canvas panels for experimenting with collage and a few other techniques. Today's painting is the first to be completed. This one started with random bits of tissue paper that I had stamped, stenciled and painted with leftover paint from previous paintings. I used light gloss gel to glue the tissue to the canvas panel then stenciled some patterns on it after the gel dried. Today I added some glazes. Turns out I really like phthalo blue.

Below is the piece before I added the glazes (in landscape orientation).