Here am I teetering
On the edge of paradise
Feet in the sand head in the jungle
Wondering what
Creatures will be in the greeting party
Will they bring shells and slimy treats
Or stand apart wary
Of me the uncivilized
Of other language, flora and fauna
As I stare open mouthed
Offering for now a mute greeting
We played with gesso textures in Muse Group today. This piece was a part of my demo. I knew better than to resist the urge to go tropical, on the verge of a trip to Mexico. I leave tomorrow for one week. There’s way too much ocean and jungle cycling through this overheated mind of mine right now to think that anything else would emerge in a Muse inspired piece.
The lesson, Decalcomanie, was one that I cherish for its serendipity of textures – . You slather some gesso onto your paper randomly or in a shape and place another piece of paper on top. Press the sheets together, by hand or with a roller. When you pull them apart you have some kind of texture, often coral-like. The thickness of the gesso determines how pronounced or subtle the texture is. Let it dry and you now have two beginnings to fun acrylic mixed media paintings. Add collage and dry media and you’ll have a hard time stopping. But you’ve got two textured beginnings, so do a second!
This piece started as a kind of sampler for different applications of acrylic texture, so you’ll see some stenciled texture, which I also demonstrated. When the gesso was dry I wet the whole piece and floated fluid acrylic color on, using the tipping of the paper to move and blend the paints and reveal the textures. Voila! a jungle appeared. And what is a jungle after all, but a tumble of textures.
I’ll see when I get there. Back to packing.
For some other examples of this technique visit these other posts here and here.
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