What comes from experimentation

Daily Painting - Day 21

In early January, I had a request from a customer on my etsy site to paint St. Anne.  She was in no hurry so I saw this as my opportunity to try to combine my current style with the Saints in acrylic with my new found love of pastels.  I explain some of my process and my discoveries below.

St. Anne with the Blessed Virgin Mary
9x12 pastel and mixed media on Uart sanded paper

I began by exploring just what you could do on sanded paper.  Below is the underpainting using watercolor, acrylics, ink, stencils and stamps (similar to my process that I use on canvas boards)

After the initial sketches, I began to lay down large blocks of color in pastel.  I ran into a few problems.  I found that pastel does not like to stick to acrylic paint.  I worked with it as best as I could and fortunately there was not a lot of it in the underpainting.  The areas where the acrylic was used that had been watered down as in a wash seemed to work ok.

As you can see I struggled.  I put down too much pastel.  So, I set it aside and the next day, with fresh eyes, I still felt the same and decided to remove some of it.  I found a stiff brush in my studio and I gently brushed off areas I didn't like.  I also used a gummy eraser to remove some other areas. The Uart sanded paper is great for this - very sturdy and holds lots of layers of color.  Still plenty of tooth to work with.

After this removal, I decided that I like seeing some of the designs, textures and prints that I had originally created in my underpainting and decided I would try to allow them to show through and work with and around them (see St. Anne's garment - the triangle area in the center).  Also the celtic stamp that I carved and stamped is a symbol of the mother/daughter bond, certainly had the shape of a heart.  This shape made me think if the image of the sacred heart so I went with it.

I learned a lot from this and I think the final result is more than acceptable.  We will see what my possible customer has to say.  I will take what I learned from this, along with some other ideas that came my way while working on it and try some more new things.

Please feel free to comment and ask any questions you may have!

Baby Steps

"Progress: You might not be where you want to be but you're not where you used to be."

Daily Painting: Day 13

St. Anne and blessed mother Mary
Mixed media on UART 500 sanded pastel paper
Work in Progress

Continued progress - slow but steady.  Every mark is a lesson.  I'm using the pastel pencils a lot more than I ever have.  They seem to be easier to use over the acrylic texture that I created on the background.  Which, by the way, I won't likely do again.  I am finding it very frustrating and disruptive to this painting.

I'm thinking I would love to try some gold leaf for a halo around Mary's head. I have no experience with gold foil, however.  I would definitely try it on a smaller similar background to see how and if it adheres.  I'll be sure to share my process here so you can learn right along with me.  Another option, I was thinking, is a gold spray paint.  I'm thinking I would cover everything up except the specific area I want to spray.  Again, will test first and share process and results.