Art du Jour 74

I watched a YouTube video yesterday and it inspired me to create this. The artist used acrylic paints, brushing various colours on to the canvas, letting some dry, and spraying others while still wet with water. She then used a paper towel to blot some of the water and colour up, letting the base colour show through and dabbing the excess on to other colours here and there on the canvas.

Well. Doesn’t that sound easy? I think my paper towel must be better quality than hers, because it lifted everything up and refused to let it go. So I was barely started and already breaking the rules. This is why I don’t take art classes and prefer to just wing it and see what happens. A couple of sea sponges worked way better than the paper.

I took a picture of the background I was finally happy with, just in case it all went downhill from there. Although I don’t know what difference that was supposed to make. It was really bright so I toned it down and blended it all with some watered down gesso.

Then obviously as you can see I don’t know which way is up, and flipped the canvas so the flowers would fit. I sketched them in pencil, went over them with gesso, painted them with acrylics and did some shading with gelatos. The lady I watched did a lot of ink outlines everywhere but I tried to keep the ink to a minimum. I added some texture and stamps instead.  Because that’s what I do.

Finally, as instructed (what? really??) I added white splatter, let it dry, and then added some black. This is supposed to keep the splattered dots from mixing and turning grey. And it worked. Whaddaya know.

I really admire the artists who make these videos because of their ability to stay serious and not swear. Someone should do a tutorial on that. Sorry, it won’t be me.

And that’s how I spent my Wednesday.  How was yours?  If you were serious and didn’t swear, never mind.