Mixed-Media To Soothe The Brain

My vacation season is fast approaching and I'll be home very little between now and October 1, the day Jane will send out our first class assignments. Because the next two and a half years will be completely packed with fabrics and surface design, I've decided that I'll spend the small interim of studio time left relaxing my brain and indulging my playful, messy muse with tons of mixed-media painting.

The studio is blitzed.

I bought myself a huge pack of 110# super bright card stock, arranged my paints, stamps, foam printing plates, Thermofax screens- everything came out and is now taking up my entire work space- and dove in.

Now please don't laugh at me- I know these aren't "art"!

But they will make glorious elements when cut or torn into pieces for collage work.

I painted and monoprinted, moving from one page and paint medium to the next and then back again, allowing each piece to build organically layer by layer. By the time I call a piece of paper "finished", it usually has at least five- and maybe as many as ten or fifteen- layers.

Many of them relate to one another (in case I need "matchy-matchy" in the future) yet each maintains its own identity so it can be used separately, as well.

Some of them aren't complete, yet.

They may go back into the pile and be pulled out again in three hours to be tinkered with and modified.

Or they could sit for several years before I get back to them.

Eventually, most of them will be used in some way.

And sometimes when I aim for beauty, I miss, and hit something else entirely.

Thank goodness for Gesso.

Background papers like these are really easy to make. A few supplies, a general understanding of color, and you can create collage materials of your own- and never need to depend on store-bought papers, again!