So many choices!

For several years I have considered myself to be a colored pencil artist.  But being the art teacher by day, I have to be familiar with many different materials to introduce to my students. Which also means that I get to experiment with many different materials! Which can be really fun!  I still work alot with my colored pencils, but over the last few years I have begun to work alot with clay and mixed media and collage.  I bought some painting mediums for my students a couple of years ago, to mix with acrylic paints to add texture.  Many of my students really loved the paint mediums, as I do.  At first we just experimented.  But I have come to love how they can add texture to the acrylic paints. The sample to the right is my first experiment/demo with the paint that I mixed with Goldens Molding Paste. I got a sample pack of the different textures that are available in the Goldens, so I don't remember if this was the Light Gel, or the Extra Heavy Gel.  It also has some tissue paper painted/layered in there to get another texture.  While it was drying, I also applied some objects that had textures on them, to get more of a variety of textures.  This one is not finished at this point though. I plan to get it out one of these afternoons and add more texture.

The sample to the left is one that I did this year where I demonstrated getting the texture down...not really knowing at first what I was going to do with it. This was an abandoned canvas that had pink painted allover. So I partially covered it with blue. 

Then, I decided to add the shape of a house, to add to my house theme collection!  I didn't have an acrylic painting of one of my little houses. After adding layers of paint, I decided it needed more embelishments, so I created some 3D pots of flowers out of clay. After glazing and firing, I glued them to the canvas. I think it needs some more work with some detail or added dimension somewhere. So it is a work in progress. You may see it again someday.

This summer, I plan to play around a lot more with the mixed media materials.  Mixed media really seems to be a popular technique with artists today.  I have been seeing more and more magazines, blogs, workshops and websites that showcase some really cool mixed media art. 

So many choices...and not enough time!  I have old books! I could alter them, I could cut out of them and use parts of pages!  I can create some printed text with my computer printer!  But I also need to making lots of little houses and some new things that I'm thinking about.  So there's never enough time! But that is a great feeling to have alot of ideas jumping around in there.

I hope to show some of my progress with a variety media and techniques this summer.  So many things to do, not enough time in a day for me to play!

I'm off to play in the studio. Have a nice day!
~Beth