Negative Is Fun!

... negative can be very Fun and a spontaneous channel of expression when it comes to creating a negative space pattern. I continue to derive more and more inspiration from a book I wrote about couple of posts ago ~ 'Celebrate Your Creative Self' by Mary Todd Beam. One of the chapters describes fun and easy techniques of using a negative space as a starting point for a new composition, and later on, becomes transformed into a surprising and contrasting element of the Big Whole.... anyways.... I chose heart shapes which I had first cut out from an old Dick Blick shopping bag (yes, there's an overabundance of those at my house and even more receipts awaiting a tax season....)

After few trials with various hearts' arrangements I settled on the above one...

While holding each separate heart in place, I begun to trace its shape and paint the background at the same time using a mixture of these three hot colors: Golden Heavy Body Acrylics Quinacridone Magenta, Golden Liquid Acrylics Permanent Violet Dark, and heavy body Dick Blick Acrylics Light Portrait Pink... I made sure that blending was kept to minimum in between this fun three~some, that way each color could accentuate the heart shapes more dramatically.

Once the entire surface of a 9''x11'' canvas board was painted I lifted all the hearts off the surface using tweezers... I will begin to work on this piece tomorrow and post my photo~art adventures accordingly....

As a I alluded to in my last post, I attended an Intuitive Painting Workshop yesterday.... I attended it first back in June 2008 and once I got an invitation to another workshop I felt that the timing was perfect. I've been trying to find back my own rhythm in the mysteries of creative self~expression after almost three months of 'others~oriented' life and 'struggle' is the closest that begins to describe my inner un-settlement.... So, I signed up for the workshop on the spot and all I can say is, I feel that I have re~discovered my own flow again. Throughout the workshop I was reminded of the the importance of Process over the Product and the teacher kept on posing numerous 'What ifs...?' questions as all the participants delved deeper and deeper into the mysteries of creation.... What if it was perfectly O.K. for me to use the colors I authentically wanted to? What would I paint if I didn't care about the final result? etc. ~ the questions kept on challenging the inner critic until what was finally left after over two hours of painting was my hand FOLLOWING the brush and a tempera color choosing me.... Like I've said, it is a purely experimental process that aims at suspending the critical, abusive voice of the inner critic long enough to let whatever wants to be expressed come forth without the stalling of the inner censorship. That entire workshop was based on the creative process first developed by Michelle Cassou and best described in her book 'Point Zero: Creativity Without Limits'. I just ordered my own copy to explore the process even deeper. Below is a photo of my painting which begun and culminated with nothing more than a repetition of couple different brush strokes repeated over two and a half hour period using about six tempera paint colors.

...A new painting is born...

In this painting experiment based on the book 'Celebrate Your Creative Self' I employed a 9''x12'' canvas borad agian... First I attached horizontal layers of a tissue paper to the surface using acrylic gesso.

I dipped my 2'' brush half~and~half style in variety of Golden Liquid Acrylics and dragged them 'with the grain' of previously dired vertical tissue paper ~ gesso attached pattern. I used at least a half a dozne different paint colors, way too many to list.... but these three played a predominant role in the creation of this composition's background: Golden Liquid Acrylics Quinacridone/ Nickel Azo Gold (of course!), Turquois (Phathalo), and Quinacridone Burnt Orange... I strongly encourage you to experiment with your very own choices ~ the ones that your heart calls out to be expressed at the moment. Trust it. Follow it. And admire what's taking place right in front of your eyes!

Befere letting the paint to dry completely, I used a wet brush to blend the colors' transitions as evently as I could ~ given a sensitive tissue paper surface.

I renewed my friendship with my stamps here.... I applied a thin coat of Golden Heavy Body Acrylics Quinacridone Magenta and Golden Liquid Acrylics Permanent Violet Dark to the surface of a large stamp and.....

... I impressed it against the uneven texture of the surface with all my might.

Next I returened my attention to the Polymer Medium (Gloss) and Golden Liquid Acrylics Iridescent Bright Gold (Fine) mixture and 'drew' some irregular shapes over the stamped area...

As the Polymer Medium/Paint mixture was drying, I kept asking myslef a question ~ what's next that this painting wants? Soon I realized that more stamping is called upon..... this time a 'text pattern' is impressed on the surface using a Golden Liquid Acrylics Carbon Black.

As I conitnued to ask myself the questions about the progression of this painting, I stumbled upon another image tansfer technique that was called upon ~ stenciling. So, I pulled out my 2'' stencils and dry~brushed the shapes with Golden Liquid Acrylics Paynes Gray.

The above is a dried version of the painting's journey....