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I happened upon artist Jennifer Mercede the other day.  Call me inspired.

A little bit of her energy plus a couple of books on abstract painting made for a wonderful morning with  more Yupo & alcohol ink.  I added a few other media/resists just to see how they'd play.  Oil pastels, water soluble crayons, nupastels and matte medium.  Can't pick a fave because I like them all!

My first attempt at a palm tree.  I live in South Carolina, after all. 

Wading in a New Medium

Just Another Evening in Summerville - 2014

Just what I needed:  a new medium to try (and then fall in love with).  And so the story goes with alcohol inks and Yupo paper.  Thanks, Bette, for getting me curious enough to actually find the paper and get started.  She took some classes from Cathy Taylor, a favorite instructor of mine, during Art & Soul this year and couldn't stop talking about it.  So, I wandered around Cathy's site, watched a few youtube videos (that weren't all that good...sorry, so I won't link to any) and got started.  As you can see from the worktable, it's not that messy...haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I started out pretty simply making messes with drops and wipes, but then I saw my container of stencils nearby and decided to actually put a brush to paper with some sort of purpose.  A few simple squares gave me a chance to feel how the brushes worked and I played with blending color and then pulling it out with plain old 91% alcohol.

I have this heron stencil from Stencil Girl so I tried that one next and love the way the brownish, orange, blue tones came out of the "mushroom" ink. 

I decided it was time to break out a larger format.  Since the heron and the squares were still on the table, I decided to use a little bit of both to create a design that wouldn't look like a plain old sunset.  I actually took the time and put it down with the stencils in pencil.  When I showed it to someone at work, they asked me why I put the squares in...no answer other than that it just felt right.  

I used the squares to separate the cools and warms...at least that was my intention.  :)  Blue is cool and yellow's warm, right?  haaaaaa  I've only read about a zillion books on art and color and painting.  Maybe if I retire and go to art school I'll figure it out.  Sounds like a plan.