Fun New (and Older) Projects

April has been a whirlwind of activity with lectures, workshops, and private lessons.  One of the most rewarding parts of teaching is being able to meet and interact with other artists, and the spring has been full of creative conversations with both new and familiar faces! 

I encourage those of you who I've met here in LA or on my regional travels to email me with your acrylic questions and also to be an active part of these blog posts by contributing feedback about your personal experience with any of the projects and techniques I post about!

One of my favorite new projects from this month was a simple floral painting that I embellished with a dimensional muslin flower and burlap stems...

I coated my underpainting with a layer of tinted gel to simulate an encaustic wax look then embedded the muslin and burlap into the gel while it was wet, using it as an adhesive.  After the gel layer was dry, I rubbed some Raw Umber into the valleys of the gel texture to give the piece an antiqued look.

Another project that is (hopefully) close to being done is one of two figures that I started last year.  I have to keep reminding myself that painting takes time...my biggest challenge with this painting is that I'm at a stage where I'm fine tuning everything so I'm not seeing major perceivable change and I feel stagnant...can any of you relate?  Lately I've had a couple moments where I step back and think 'that's it, that section looks "right"' and I feel better.  I also have to turn my painting upside down sometimes to get a different perspective...

I'm having some big ideas and goals for the next few months and I look forward to sharing them with all of my friends, students, and readers as the days and weeks progress!