Sunday, November 19, 2017

Long pose again

Now that we can get the painting room in the daytime (which we can't in the summer, due to  kid's classes), we are back having long poses again. Most people are painting although some are drawing, and I am back to mixed media. I had a rough grey paper for this ... now I can't remember the name of the paper but it is quite rough and has flecks of something that looks like bits of straw in it. I started with a drawing in black conte' and then used pthalo blue, alizarin crimson and arylide yellow  acrylic in some washes. After using the blow-dryer, I painted on acrylic gel for pastels and then dried that too. Since the paper was already quite rough-surfaced, I then had a nice gritty surface to work on. Giving created the pose from inspiration from a statue who was part person but also turning into a fern and returning to the earth. The statue's hands had already melded into fern fronds. So it was fun to have this different idea. I worked a bit of green into the skin tones. I used some powdered pastel, applied with a sponge to get a base going as both soft pastels and harder pastels tended to sit more on the surface of the rough paper. However, I also liked the effect of the upper layers of pastel on the rougher surface. I think I only have one more piece of this paper but I may do a search to find some more. I recall that it did  come in different colours. So, what should I call it? Lady of the Ferns?

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