Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Last of the Summer Flowers

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 20 inch canvas 
 In honor of the end of summer and the beginning of fall, here is my latest painting.

I have another work in progress, a collage of gelli prints, but I haven't figured out how to finish that painting. So I decided to divert my attention by working on this painting. I wanted a lot of color. So I started with stencils, then amped up the color by dropping high flow acrylics and coaxed the color to spread and bloom by spraying liberally with water. I added a few more stencils and a bit of glass bead gel. The photo below shows the painting after the initial phase.
Underpainting after applying stencils and splashes of high flow acrylics 
 Below is the painting after I glazed around the main shapes.
Painting in the intermediate phase after glazing around shapes 

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Low Hanging Fruit

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 
Today's painting is one I've been adding layers of stencils and splashes of high flow acrylics to over the course of several days. Tonight I added a few more touches of paint with a painting knife followed by some glazes of white, titan buff and blue. I'm calling it Low Hanging Fruit.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Playing with Gelli Prints

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 12 x 16 inch hard-board 
I bought a Gelli Arts gel printing plate and went to town printing random designs on deli paper. I ripped some of the prints into strips and collaged the strips on a piece of Blick hard-board  (see below, in portrait orientation). Then I hit a brick wall - I couldn't decide what to do with it. Today I finally got back to the painting and decided to paint flowers. I glazed on some transparent color to define the petals and followed with translucent glazes in the background. I used Posca paint pens to outline the flowers and add details.
Board after collage, before painting