Saturday, September 21, 2013

Scratch Leaves

"Re-use" has been a term used in my world since as long as I can remember. It's always fun to give new life to an object that would otherwise be discarded. That is exactly how this piece began weeks ago.

Re-using cereal boxes has become one of my favorite ways to experiment with acrylic paints. I cut usable pieces and dispose of the rest in the recycle bin. In this case, I used one big side of the box for an experiment and cut the other side into a few smaller pieces.

After cutting, I prepared the glossy side of the cardboard with gesso. This just gives the acrylic something to hold on to. On that day, I used the big piece and one of the smaller ones.

Today, I used the remaining smaller piece and began by coating the pre-gessoed surface with teal paint. I used a floppy advertising magnet to spread the paint all over the mini-canvas. Next, I followed with a light sky blue in the same fashion. Soon, I scraped the shape of some simple leaves into the surface.

To my surprise, I could see the teal through the light blue paint. I continued adding veins to the leaves and then smooshed the floppy magnet into the paint a bit. This made it possible to see texture adding to the full effect of the leaves.

Finally, I filled in some red and brown to make the leaves pop from their surfaces.

This was a fun project and I intend to make more of these mini canvasses for when the mood strikes.

Think you would try it?

Let me know :)
Kim

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