Lesson 5, Project 3, Exercise 6

Well, this piece was a sweet little surprise. I continued to play with Project 3 of Lesson 5, spiraling back to earlier lessons. The focus: pattern and scale, with the addition of line.

I painted a loose grid background in neutral colors. Satisfying. Soothing to paint.

From there, I took a variety of steps, each of which—unwittingly—created a problem to solve. I mostly didn't go anywhere I thought I'd be going but I like what happened, and I like this piece which has the not-quite-logical, slightly surreal feel of a dream.

I had no intention of using collage but then there I was doing so, and here's the scoop on those bits of collage. Until I started watching Jane Davies' videos a few months ago it hadn't occurred to me that when it comes time to clean a paintbrush the very first thing to do is to snag every possible bit of residual paint from the brush, using stencils and other materials to create patterns and textures on drawing paper. All the collage pieces here come from precisely that kind of brush-cleaning starting-point.

Soft Breezes
4x5", acrylic, collage, and ink on watercolor paper
abstract
2016
[gifted]