Sacrifice of Joy

If one were to scroll back through this blog to January of last year, they would see my first "mixed media" peice, using paint, coloring utensils, and sandpaper on wood. These next two projects, were also completed via this non-traditional method. I rather enjoy using things such as tissue paper, magazine/printed images, and traditional drawing techniques together to create a masterpeice. In doing this, one can almost tell a story with their art far deeper than the one acheived via a simpler peice. It makes a person question "How many ways can I use this?" I recall often calling tissue paper useless as a child, and loathing water color, saying "It is too thin" However, in this peice I made use of the low opacity of those two materials, layering them to crate a fading effect.
This picture, is dedicated to my kindered spirit, she knows who she is. When I was looking through the theme options, I noted several that made me think of her, one of which was 'what is currently on your mind?'. Having been speaking with her the previous evening, I recalled how she was going through some low points in life. I longed to relay to her how much both I and Christ cared for her, and how Christ shed his blood for so that she might be free from that darkness. Thus, I set to work.
I began with a coat of Gesso across the whole of the two pages, then proceeded to layer various shades of tissue paper in the lower righthand corner. After coats of watercolor, oil pastel, pen, magazine pages (to create the hand) and some more gesso, I felt something was missing. Thus, grabbing some red ribbon, glitter, and more oil pastel I envisioned the blood going from my image of Christ's hand to the crying girl.,  and placed it on. This not only adheared the peice together, but surved as a unifying line that embodied the theme better than I had orginally planned.

Ringing with Envy

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord! Acheived through dozens of layers of Oil Pastel, I am proud of this peice. As I worked throuh the peice I stuggled in attempting to create the right colors with the 9 color of pastel that were available. In the orginal photo, one would notice the bells have nearly no shadow and are on a solid white background. This is due to their placement on a white polyfleece blanket, allowing me to create a background from my imagination, and the backgrohnd I chose had a rather stricking effect when I finished. Far away, the warping metal of the bells simply looks like a metal skirt, yet under the close proximity the peice was done, one might see a portal to another world.

Sweet Clay

In the process of making this project, I learned the importance of layers. It took about 4 layers for each peice, at a minimum. Were I to redo this project, I likely would tint the polyacrylic glaze in over  the shortcake to give the apperance of strawberry juice. The cakepops I would have made larger, and molded each of the details out of clay to simulate the fondant or candies one would use to decorate a cakepop. I did enjoy the combination of acrylic paints and clay, as it allowed for texture, shading, and details to be added which a glaze would not acheive, or not do so realistically. Overall im happy with the product, and would enjoy this process again.