21 Secrets 2013 inspired art

This is inspired by 21 Secrets 2013 workshop by Cathy Bluteau called Doodling Our Way.

Beautiful Spirit

Detail. I added a fabric flower and petals.

Detail. The paper was an envie that I got from Mary Ann Moss in her class, Ticket to Venice.
 I love the color it adds - painting with paper.

Detail. The flowers are mostly scrapbook papers.

Detail. Small flowers and butterfly collage were from a Mary Englebreit calendar.
I used dimensional paint in  some circles.

What I enjoyed most about this process was breaking the page down into sections and treating each section as a small piece of art. This made it easier to pull the collage together. I enjoyed doing this so much I've completed two more; one on paper to be framed, the other on a small 5x7 canvas.

21 Secrets 2012

21 Secrets 2012, a set on Flickr. Click for descriptions.

Art inspired by 21 Secrets 2012

Interesting Turns in Arting

This painting was inspired by Diana Trout.

Reckless Abandon

Here is how it evolved ...

the background was an "off paint" page (paint monoprinted from another page).

 collage materials were randomly pulled and glued down. 

 a layer of gesso (actually way too much gesso was put down and I had to pull a lot off. I was trying to keep the leg in the left corner and the vessel/urn in the lower right corner. I also wanted to keep the gazebo in the center. Still didn't have any "theme" in mind.

 paint was smooshed with credit card and smoothed with a brush

 I added red tissue paper and a paper napkin. Voila, a theme emerged. The red tissue reminded me of an umbrella. Walking in the rain in Paris ... Hence the journaling:

Make art with reckless abandon but don't search for treasures in Paris without an umbrella and a good pair of walking shoes.

This was a fun exercise in collage and paint with no determined purpose and with reckless abandon.

Evolution of a Painting

I'm really enjoying myself with this 21 Secrets workshops. I've sort of lost track of which workshop is influencing me as I paint. The ones I've taken so far: Flow, Intuitive Painted Layers, 15 Minutes to Sanity, and Journal Quest, are similar in that you start with a painted background and "excavate" (Tracie Hanson's term) for shapes and symbols. It feels like intuitive painting as I go from stage to stage of a painting. Here is an example:

I started with journaling. I used a cool color pallet and scrapped paint onto the paper. With pencil, I began "excavate" and outline shapes. I immediately saw human shapes; probably influenced by my journaling. 

 Perhaps this wasn't as "intuitive" as it could have been. However, I was quite pleased to find these shapes.

I then painted the shapes and then the negative space. For some reason, I was drawn to paint one shape my favorite turquoise - it's heavy body so quite dark. But something told me to leave it. I thought the shape about "her" was the mentor so I drew in a face shape and hair. Doing that, she somehow seemed to lose power. I left it overnight, not knowing where I'd go with it.

When I returned to it I saw the need to erase the face and hair. I then saw the "mentor" in the lower left corner. She looks like a woman in prayer. Following my instinct (intuition), I added gold glitter to the shape around the dark "head". I also added gold symbols and lines around the edges of the painting. 

I've named it "Ancient Voices" as that was the CD I was listening to and it seems to fit. I'm not sure if I'll do any more to this, like filling in the spaces with doodles or details ... for now it seems complete.