Blues mixed media woman portrait

Blues

This week's lesson with Ce Duff was simply awesome.   It really is a mixed media portrait using paper collage, soft pastels, and acrylics.   Everything is built up in layers and a whole lot of matte medium is consumed covering each layer.  

I started out making my own collage paper using dollar store white tissue paper.   Never thought about making it before but it was pretty fun, messy, but fun.  I also tried some dollar store hand-made paper I bought years ago (you can see it at the bottom right) which has leaves embedded in it.   Never have used it, but finally here is a reason to get it out and tear it up.  I only bought two packs, now wishing I would have gotten more.

Then I learned a new technique using soft pastel which ends up being activated and fixed in layers of matte medium.  It makes perfect sense since pastel is pure pigment.  It sort of gets suspended in the medium and so like watercolor tends to reflect the light as it usually would if it was left dry and built up in layers.   Advantage though is that you can put this on canvas and it wouldn't have to be fixed which usually changes colors or framed under glass.   Whoopee, that opens up lots of doors.  

The whole picture is built up using different layers of acrylic and pastel until you achieve the designed effect.   This really is a push-pull technique.   But again, it is so forgiving and you can really end up with good detail and achieve the look you want.  The good news about the collage beginning is that it gives you a random interesting background and is the base to which either pastel or acrylics can stick.  

Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.