Yesterday I started describing the process for creating my fall leaf paintings, and today I have a lot more photos to show you.
(The finished products - 2 8"x10" paintings and 2 4"x6" paintings can be found on sale here.)
As I showed yesterday, I put some masking down on the paper to preserve some areas before I painted over with any pigments. After all of the paint for that first red-orange-yellow layer was dry, I peeled the masking fluid off.
Because I was working on four paintings at once, some paintings were still getting their "first round" of stamping done while I peeled off the masking fluid and moved on with those that were ready.
Once the masking fluid was all removed, I was ready to stamp some more. This time I added in green for a focal point to stand out against the red-orange-yellow background. I also used a greater variety of leaf sizes and shapes, and tried to leave the leaves on longer, so they would be darker and crisper, with visible outlines, leaf stems, and veins.
To help secure the leaves in place while the pigment was transferring, I put things on top of the leaves, like boxes of playing cards and the bottle of masking fluid (whatever I had handy at the table I was working at).
Here you can see some of the darker orange and yellow leaves, after they'd been sitting for some time.
I also found that wetting the leaves on the opposite side (pushing on the opposite side with my watercolor brush) helped to push the pigment off the leaves and onto the paper.
The first two that got to this second stage of leaf stamping were okay - but not exactly what I was hoping for. You can see in the close-ups that the green leaves were actually left on the paper too long, giving them kind of a weird quality I didn't like. These were the two paintings that I eventually scraped or cut into smaller pieces for the 4"x6" paintings.
The last two paintings turned out better (I learned from my mistakes). Here are some close-ups of the last two paintings.
After all of them had been stamped with all four colors (red, orange, yellow, and green) and I was satisfied with the amount of paper covered in pigment vs. the amount of white paper still visible, I left them to dry overnight.
The next day, I went back through with colored pencil to emphasize some of the leaf shapes - but those photos are the story for tomorrow!
If you are interesting in purchasing these paintings, check out my Etsy shop here!
(The finished products - 2 8"x10" paintings and 2 4"x6" paintings can be found on sale here.)
As I showed yesterday, I put some masking down on the paper to preserve some areas before I painted over with any pigments. After all of the paint for that first red-orange-yellow layer was dry, I peeled the masking fluid off.
Because I was working on four paintings at once, some paintings were still getting their "first round" of stamping done while I peeled off the masking fluid and moved on with those that were ready.
Once the masking fluid was all removed, I was ready to stamp some more. This time I added in green for a focal point to stand out against the red-orange-yellow background. I also used a greater variety of leaf sizes and shapes, and tried to leave the leaves on longer, so they would be darker and crisper, with visible outlines, leaf stems, and veins.
To help secure the leaves in place while the pigment was transferring, I put things on top of the leaves, like boxes of playing cards and the bottle of masking fluid (whatever I had handy at the table I was working at).
Here you can see some of the darker orange and yellow leaves, after they'd been sitting for some time.
I also found that wetting the leaves on the opposite side (pushing on the opposite side with my watercolor brush) helped to push the pigment off the leaves and onto the paper.
The first two that got to this second stage of leaf stamping were okay - but not exactly what I was hoping for. You can see in the close-ups that the green leaves were actually left on the paper too long, giving them kind of a weird quality I didn't like. These were the two paintings that I eventually scraped or cut into smaller pieces for the 4"x6" paintings.
The last two paintings turned out better (I learned from my mistakes). Here are some close-ups of the last two paintings.
After all of them had been stamped with all four colors (red, orange, yellow, and green) and I was satisfied with the amount of paper covered in pigment vs. the amount of white paper still visible, I left them to dry overnight.
The next day, I went back through with colored pencil to emphasize some of the leaf shapes - but those photos are the story for tomorrow!
If you are interesting in purchasing these paintings, check out my Etsy shop here!
No comments:
Post a Comment