A little mixed media

This week I have been playing around with color.  Fall is inching closer and Michigan will be a flood of reds and golds in a few short weeks.  I love Fall colors and that's what I've used on this canvas.

I started with a layer of gesso.   Right after the layer was complete, I dipped my brick stencil into the wet gesso to leave an impression.

To better show the texture of the dried gesso, I smeared on a few light spots of Gelato to highlight the ridges.

The entire canvas was covered with Dixie Belle's Grunge Glaze.  Since I was going with a Fall theme I felt like the brown in the glaze would be a good fit.

The glaze interacted with the Gelato and gave me some different undertones.  Gelatos are water soluable so they are activated with paint just as easily as with water.

I chose a few more Gelatos that reminded me of fall and used my finger to apply them in random spots on the canvas.

Now to add some fun texture!  Punchinella is a great way to add dots to a background.  You can sponge or paint over the surface.  This time, since I was using Gelatos I chose to lay down the ribbon and wipe over the top with a baby wipe to remove some of the pigment.  This lets the spots remain the same basic color as the surrounding area.

I made sure the ribbon was going in a couple of different directions so that the spots would be random.

At this point I sprayed the canvas with a fixative to keep the Gelatos from reactivating in the next stages.  The gesso was still out so I dipped a paper tube and a pencil eraser in it to add circles and spots.  Gesso is thick so these are slightly raised.

A little water was added to the grunge glaze to form drips.

Our paper towels at work have a gear on one end to go on the feeder.  There was an almost empty roll on the counter so I rescued this little piece of plastic and used it here to create these gear circles in the copper Art Alchemy paint.

I applied a few patches of a white pearl paint with my fingertip .  They look really white in the bright light at this angle.  At other angles you can barely see them.  I like that effect!

These letters are from a tag alphabet.  I have them just laid on the canvas right now because I am thinking of adding more layers to it.

Supplies Used:

Your choice of canvas or art journal

Gesso

Dixie Belle Grunge Glaze

Gelatos in your favorite colors

Punchinella

Spray Fixative

Art Alchemy or other acrylic paints

Tag Alphabet