Happy New Year!

Painting by Vicky Christensen, Golden OPEN acrylic on 9 x 12 inch canvas panel 

Happy New Year folks!

I wanted to end the old year by using up the paint on my palette. So here's a quick and loose impression of an apple tree.

Another Experiment with Golden OPEN Acrylics

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 12 inch canvas 

I had some paint left over from yesterday's painting so I decided to do a little more experimenting. I put my palette into my Masterson sealable palette box yesterday and today the paint was still quite workable. No wet sponge necessary.

I painted this subject once before with pastels. The reference photo is one my nephew took in Hawaii, which accounts for the black beach. I think it turned out OK for my second effort with Open acrylics. When it dries fully I might try glazing it to make it more luminous and perhaps tone down the blue of the ocean.

Update - I experimented with an orange glaze of paint and OPEN gloss medium to tone down the blue in the ocean. It didn't go on as smoothly as I would like. I probably should have waited another day. Here's what it looks like:

Update, Jan. 1, 2016

I decided to make a few changes to the waves and the reflections of the sun. I brought back some of the blue tint to the whitecaps, reinforced the glints of sunlight, and glazed the foreground black beach with ultramarine blue  (which didn't photograph well). I think the waves look too repetitive but I am happier with the colors now.

Experimenting with Golden OPEN Acrylics

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 9 x 12 inch canvas panel 

Craftsy has a clearance on Golden OPEN Acrylics, 60% off the list price. I have been thinking about trying them, so I took the opportunity to buy several colors. They have been sitting around a few weeks, calling to me. I finally answered the call. The longer open time gives you time to blend  (and make mud if you aren't careful ;) ). It takes some time to get used to them, but I think I'm going to like them for some types of subjects. I like to glaze a lot, so we'll see if the paint dries fast enough to do layering. I probably will have to be a lot more patient  (not my strength) and will need to do more experimenting, but so far I like them.

Early winter scene

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

I reworked another of my earlier experiments. I glazed over the original with Titan Buff and did a little subtractive stenciling to give it some texture. Then I painted the scene you see above.

Enjoy the season folks!

Happy holidays

Recycled painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 20 x 16 inch canvas 

I decided to recycle another painting. This one went through several iterations before it became what you see above. First I wanted to embellish an old painting by adding pastels so I gessoed it with clear gesso to give it some tooth. I painted some flowers with the pastels then tried to blend the pigments using paint and matte medium and the result was blah. I ended up covering most of it up with paint. Then I just started painting circles, doing several in one color, then the next color and so on. I decided to glaze the circles with a translucent mix of Titan Buff and glazing medium.

Then I didn't know how to finish it until I got the inspiration today to paint Poinsettias. And voila, today's painting!

Edit: here's a better photo, taken in indirect sunlight

More recycling

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

I'm in the recycling mood. This painting was a quick experiment: start with a very colorful old painting and turn it into a floral still life.

This is the old painting (imagine it rotated 180 degrees):

Original painting

I glazed a coat of Golden Titan Buff over the painting, placing a stencil in some places and wiping away some of the glaze for additional subtle texture. Then I quickly painted the outlines of the flowers, stems, leaves and vase. Then I followed up with some glazes of color to fill in the still life.

The style is pretty loose and primitive but I like the results. This was fun!

Abstract collage

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

It seems lately that no matter what I plan to paint I end up going off on a wild tangent. I started this painting with fluid acrylics that I moved around on the canvas with a deli sheet. It was getting so messy I switched to a palette knife. The next day I got distracted by the dried paint on my palette and decided to collage it to the canvas. That led to more collage with paint skins and scraps of painted deli sheets.

By this time I had a really colorful composition. I didn't want to get rid of all the rich color but I did want to rein some of it in. So I muted some of the color with a glaze of Golden Titan Buff.

Blowing Paint

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 20 x 16 inch canvas 

I pre-ordered a copy of Chris Cozen's new book Acrylic Color Explorations a while ago and was very excited to receive my copy a few days ago. If you don't know Chris Cozen, she is a mixed media artist and educator. I really love her very colorful and whimsical style. Her newest book is full of excellent information about color and includes some examples with step by step instructions. One of the examples involves blowing on puddles of high flow acrylics with a straw to get interesting blooms. I found out my lung capacity isn't what it used to be! My rendition can't compare to Chris Cozen's work but it was fun to give it a try. I will be adding straws to my painter's toolbox.

Recycling a painting

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

This painting has been recycled more than once. In fact I can't recall its first iteration. In any case, a few months ago, after buying stencils and watching a Chris Cozen video I made my first stab at mixed media. I gessoed over an old painting and gave it a little texture by pressing some stencils into the gesso. Then I slapped on some color, added a few stencils and called it a day. It has been sitting around since. Finally this week I decided to add some more layers and I give it a new life.

In case you are wondering, this is what it used to look like:

Imagine it rotated a quarter turn followed by layers of stencils and glazes.

What is it?

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

For this painting I started by dragging paint across the canvas with deli sheets. That was followed by stencils, stamps and splatters. As so often happens, I intended to make flowers but instead it evolved into what you see above. Is it cross sections of exotic fruit or painted stones? It's whatever your imagination says it is.

When I was outlining the shapes I grabbed a tube of cerulean blue and what I thought was magenta. The 'magenta' was darker than I expected and the tints it was making weren't what I expected but I was liking the results so I kept painting. It wasn't until I went back to do a bit of glazing that I discovered the 'magenta' was actually prism violet. I'm happy I grabbed the 'wrong' color by mistake!

Watery Sunset

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 20 x 16 inch canvas 

This painting is another experiment with lots of layers. I wish I had taken a photo at each phase. Suffice it to say that the finished piece looks nothing like the beginnings.

I topped this one off with a layer of 'faux encaustic' that was made from a recipe in Sandra Duran Wilson's Acrylic Painting for Encaustic Effects. I didn't go very thick with the layer.

Painted Deli Wrap Collage

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

I bought Sandra Duran Wilson's Acrylic Painting for Encaustic Effects because I love her artwork and wanted to learn some of her techniques. One of her examples begins with spreading globs of fluid acrylics on a substrate using deli sheets, then using the resulting deli sheets for collage elements. I borrowed that idea for this painting. I should note that Sandra's faux encaustic paintings also include a final layer of a mixture of gloss and matte gel to give the appearance of the wax surface of an encaustic painting, but I chose to omit that step on this painting.

High flow glow

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

This painting started with splashes of high flow acrylics. Then I decided to try dropping alcohol into the paint to make some blooms. I'm an impatient person and probably didn't catch the paint at the right moment, so the blooms were pretty subdued. But then I decided it might be fun to embellish what the alcohol did with a mixture of titan buff and Liquitex iridescent medium. After seeing the shimmer the iridescent circles added, I just had to add more bling with some stencils and glass bead gel. Today I added some glazes and finished with a few more iridescent circles.

Traffic circles and cul-de-sacs

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 20 x 16 inch canvas 

This new painting reminds me of aerial photos of suburban neighborhoods.  Traffic circles have become really popular here in Minnesota. Some of them make sense, and sometimes they put them in pretty unlikely spots. And it's a concept that confuses a lot of drivers. So this is my homage.

Basking in the sun

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

This painting started out without a plan other than to experiment with texture. I used a painting knife to apply Golden light molding paste to the canvas then pressed various objects into it to give it some texture. Some objects worked better than others. I ended up with a circle in the upper right, so I decided to put a sun there. The rest of the painting evolved (or should I say revolved) around the sun. The painting initially had a rainbow of colors moving out from the sun, but I didn't like the intensity. The surface was too textured to use glazes to tone it down so I finally settled on the dabs of broken color to portray the sun's rays. I decided to add some flowers to the butterflies I had originally stamped into the molding paste, and decided to use Golden fiber paste for the flowers. It was fun painting the flowers since fiber paste is so absorbent. All in all, this was a fun painting.

Falling leaves (and other stuff)

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

Here's another painting that started with a layer of stencils, then high flow acrylic drips. I also stenciled on some glass bead gel leaves before finishing with glazes.

Printing and Painting

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 20 x 16 inch canvas 

This painting started with a few Gelli prints that I cut up and glued to the canvas. Then I added a lot of stencils and glazes. The original Gelli prints were mostly red, teal and dark blue, but I altered the colors with transparent and translucent glazes.

High flow high jinks

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

I started this painting last week, then took a little break for a road trip to New Orleans for my niece's wedding. We had a blast. They celebrated with several touches of the local culture and cuisine, including a second line parade from the ceremony to the reception. This was my first trip to New Orleans and it ended way too soon.

So I got back home at lunch time, took care of some business, then finished this painting. This was going to be big blossoms developed with high flow acrylics and spritzes of water, but blossoms didn't appear. Instead I ended up with some colorful creatures floating in a shallow stream.

Mixing more media

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

Here's a painting I just finished. I started this one a few weeks ago, when I collaged several Gelli prints on a canvas. Then I was stuck and didn't know how to finish it.

A week ago I had some red-tinted molding paste left from another painting and decided to stencil it on this painting. It still needed something else, so I stenciled some violet-tinted glass bead gel yesterday, and stamped a few butterflies and flowers last night. Then I added some glazes and got a little carried away.

Today I added a few more touches. I think I'm finally done. I had no idea where this was going when I started, but that's part of the fun.

The gelli print collage, before adding stencils and glazes

Reusing Paint Skins

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

When paint dries on my palette, I wait until some accumulates,  then peal it off and save it. I finally decided to use some of it in a painting. This is the result. I combined the skins with some Gelli-printed deli paper and embellished it with some glazes and some glass bead gel.

Toodie's Paintings

Once a month I help a few of the residents at my mother's assisted living facility paint. We've been painting mostly in watercolor. We added acrylic to the mix today.

One of the most faithful group members is Toodie. She is new to watercolor and acrylic, but taught herself to paint with oil paints when she and her husband Elton lived in Japan after World War II.

Today I stopped by their apartment to get a glimpse of her artwork. I have to say that even though I had already seen her talent first hand when our group gets together to paint, I was truly amazed by her oil paintings. What talent she has! I am so happy she is still painting. Here's a toast to Toodie and Elton, married 72 years and still going strong.

Some more of Toodie's paintings:

Toodie's painting of a Japanese coast. She also painted
the scenes on the bottles in the foreground 

Toodie

Stenciled Trees

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

This painting was an experiment. The goal was to use stencils in a dompletely different way. I wanted to do another autumn themed mixed media painting, so I started with some gold, red and green fluid acrylics as a background, then stenciled on many layers of more transparent color. Tonight I finished with tree trunks and branches and some negative painting to define the outline of the tree canopy and fill in the sky. This painting was lots of fun.

Change of Season

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 16 X 20 inch canvas 

Since the leaves are starting to change colors here in Minnesota, I thought that was a good excuse to paint colored leaves. This painting was done with a little molding paste, lots of stencils, and finished with translucent and transparent glazes. Can you tell I like lots of color?

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 

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.

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

More stencils and glazes

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums, paint pens

Here's today's painting, another one with lots of stencils finished with layers of translucent glazes. I used Posca water-based paint markers to draw the branches and outline the leaves.

More fun with texture

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic paint and mediums on 16 X 12 inch canvas panel 

I really like adding texture to my paintings, especially when I add stenciled layers of gloss gel over an underpainting then glaze with a transparent color. I find myself wondering if I am getting repetitive but I do love the intense color and the sense of depth.

Recycling old art

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

This painting started as an experiment with acrylic and alcohol. I have seen examples of using alcohol to create 'blooms' in acrylic paint and wanted to try it. I also wanted to try my new Posca paint markers. But then I was stuck until I remembered an old watercolor painting that I had abandoned. So I used pieces of that old painting as collage elements. Add more paint and marker highlights and you have today's painting.

More drips, drops and textures

Painting by Vicky Christensen, mixed media on 20 x 16 inch Ampersand Hardbord 

 This is my first time painting on Ampersand Hardbord. I prepped the surface with Golden GAC 100, followed by a couple layers of gesso. The first layer of paint was drips and spatters of high flow acrylics. Then I collaged with scraps of painted tracing paper. For the next layer I covered the board with raised stencils of light gloss medium. I glazed over the stencils and wiped off the excess, letting the stenciled areas act as a resist. I liked the vibrant colors so I decided to not follow with translucent glazes to calm down the color.

Here is what it looked like after the drips and spatters (and spritzes of water):

Floating leaves

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

 This is another experiment with fiber paste and raised stencils. I wanted to see if I could get some watery effects. I didn't get all the effects I wanted, but picked up some ideas for future paintings.

Update:
The color in the upper part of the painting was bugging me, so I decided to glaze it with phthalo blue. Here is the updated version:

Same painting after glaze

Here is the painting in earlier stages. When I was at this stage I thought it was too light. Now I wish I would have kept the lighter hue.

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.