Tuesday, February 8, 2011

get your paint on...



I have enrolled in 'Get your paint on' a five week online painting class with Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough.  We are into week 2 and our second assignment is to find a painting by another artist that we love and take something from that painting and incorporate it into a painting of our own.  Well I chose a Kiwi artist I recently discovered during the Christmas holidays... Mandy Emerson.  I just fell in love with a painting of hers behind the counter in a little art supplies shop in Greytown.  

Mandy Emerson uses the intense colours that I really love and she seems to use a lot of mediums that don't like each other, that produce a chemical reaction.  I like this idea and have done it in the past with oil based printing ink and shellac.   So above is the first part of my play with this assignment... I have used iridescent oil sticks with a light layer of acrylic paint.  The water based acrylic has a very subtle dislike for the oil layer underneath and has produced a nice effect.  I have then lightly brushed areas of the paint off with my fingers so the shiny oil stick colour glows through in places.

I have actually found this quite fun, it was the first time I have had a real play on a stretched canvas... one thing I didn't like though was that I couldn't use my stamps on it as the surface wasn't strong enough to take a print from the stamp... more soon.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Mandy's work too. She had an exhibition here in Hamilton at the Soul Gallery which was gorgeous. My hubby is a big fan!

I used to get so mad at my stamps not working on canvas until I started using the rubber ones without the block to hold them. I usually end up painting over the top of them for no real reason, but they do come out really nice on stretched canvas.

I LOVE what you have done with this! It looks fabulous!

Mel @ Wildflower said...

Fab Katherine :) I look forward to seeing how you progress through the course - it sounds challenging.

Happy Mama (Lisa Gonzalez) said...

This is gorgeous! The texture is just beautiful. Well done!

softearthart said...

An interesting texture, looking good, cheers Marie

Anonymous said...

this is gorgeous Katherine :) I hope to do the course next time, sounds like its a total blast.

Nic Hohn said...

love the softness of your colour choice

Unknown said...

Hi Katherine,
Gorgeous...love the colours you have used...the course sounds great..

Veronica said...

Mandys work is gorgeous isnt it!