Someday, the altered art you make today will be
old, faded, falling apart, and someone else will salvage the bits and use them
in new altered art.It's the best that any piece of art can hope for

~ anon~


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Tuesday 3 January 2012

Things evolve......

In a moment of pre christmas 'no mojo' panic I signed up to an online course with Traci Bautista
 It started on the 1st of January and I eagerly watched the video that night, Traci makes it all look so easy!

Well here is my first effort from week one - not sure if I like it or not, not sure if it is over worked or not worked enough? But hey its all a learning process thats what its all about.


This is how it started out.. Traci sprayed through stencils and masks with acrylic paints in a spray bottle, I didnt have any spray bottles so used colourwash sprays.. ummmmm BIG mistake because they arent colourfast are they! So when I went to add the next layer of Acrylic paint, it just moved the colour around and muddied up the colours


Wasnt going to waste the first sheet of my precious 300gsm watercolour paper, so had to think of something.
So I gave the whole thing a rough layer of clear gesso.. which as you can see has changed the whole look of the thing


Once dry, I went over it again with some masks and sponged on the acrylic paint - rescued from the bin


As you can see from the first (but final) picture I played alot more with it, following the video demo, all great fun and very therapeutic - the course is free and I think it is still open to subscribe, so why not have a go!


Kids back to school tomorrow - bittersweet, I will miss them (and the lay-ins) but bonus I will have more time to play, and afterall I have a tutorial to work on!

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for this Nicks, signed up and was going to use the inks like you!! thanks for the heads up on that. Hey I might get away from block colours and start journalling!!
    I love Traci's collage book I've got it around here somewhere....

    Loving your page Nicks

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  2. Turned out pretty barned good Nicks!

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  3. Thanks for the link Nicks.

    Watched the videos tonight and to be honest, I prefer your piece.

    Here's hoping it will get my mojo moving.

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  4. this is gorgeous nicks... cant wait to see more from this workshop

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  5. Hi there! love seeing your progress. wonderful..I love all the juicy layers of color. thanks for sharing your artwork and my workshop! ~Traci

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  6. I was amazed how your BG changed with the brushing of gesso...great end product! Its my first Strathmore workshop & I like it, see mine here http://www.strathmoreartiststudio.com/photo/a-doodles-unleashed-wk1-d?context=user

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  7. Sounds - and looks - a lot of fun. Happy New Year and enjoy.... will look forward to your next instalment!

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  8. Love this, it just looks so rich, the background colour works so well!

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  9. Wow Nicks the end result is fabulous. x

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  10. I have the same problem with the colorwarsh sprays - when they started mixing, I froze, and now I have a bunch of half-completed backgrounds that I am unsure how to use. I thought about ironing them to heat set the colors, but I'm afraid it will do weird things to the paint I have already applied.

    I love your commitment to saving your background, and although I think the overall work is a little fussy at it's current size, it would make an awesome masterboard, or would do very well cut up into smaller pieces.

    Thank you for sharing - I am inspired to keep working through!

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  11. Great how you've made and changed this artwork...it takes courage! Really love it!

    Greetings, Alie :-)

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  12. love the final product. i wonder if it was sprayed with fixative after the color wash if that would make it permanent. these are the kind of spay paints i currently and knew but had forgotten they weren't permanent. any way, it ended up great.

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  13. This turned out way cool!!! A Happy accident with the colorwash!!! Love your tutorial on Gingersnap!!!

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