Fibermania

Collage #1
Oils over acrylic collage, 36x36"

Looks like a quilt, doesn't it? Perhaps that is what I have been looking for all these years. A looser, more soft edge, blendy kind of image.

I had planned to paint a still life and went under the stairs to get a large canvas, and when I brought it out into the daylight, I notice a small cut in the canvas on one corner. Hmm. I thought I could patch it with some paper and gel medium and save the surface. The gel medium is like lard and spreads so beautifully onto the canvas. I ripped some Arches paper that I had been using to test paint colors and put that down onto the gel. And it looked too good to stop.

Forgetting completely about the still life, I began arranging the paper and gel into a composition. Then after that all dried, I coated it with gesso and let that dry. Second coat, same thing.

Then I stained the whole thing to bring out the texture of the collage. After that was semi-dry I wiped off the surface, leaving the paint in the crevices to dry.

This detail shows the texture that was my base. Then I was able to paint the underpainting. This method was really different than the other techniques I have been trying and I am pretty excited about doing it again.