Art Fest Painting #1

My santos is slowly coming to life 

and has already undergone quite a metamorphosis.

Change is happening daily -

don't you wish it was that easy to recolor our world

and paint out the areas in our lives that we don't like?

She was started on day #1 with Misty Mawn  at Art Fest
and looked like this when I came home.

She is cute, but the composition is boring and
I hated the wings... just not me.
But I loved the background, pattern and color...

Misty's class was titled "Paint Weaving"
and was about painting layers to create
a dynamic, layered, mixed media painting.

Misty paints with her fingers and scrapers
made from credit cards or cardboard,
pours paint and inks, blots with paper,
tears papers and glues them down,
scrapes away and writes in the wet paint,
 all while working very quickly and not over thinking -
She builds up one layer after another with stencils, bubble wrap,
collage, stamps and transfers to create a gorgeous story of texture.
Two of her favorite toys are Neocolor II Caran D'Ache
water soluble crayons
 and my personal favorite -a black Aquarella Stabilo Marks All Pencil
(I have them in white and dark green also).

She is an extremely gifted, gracious and a very encouraging teacher.

This is my background with layers of stencils, stamps etc..
I experimented with a new color palette of paint
by Claudine Hellmuth that Misty brought for us to try.
OK, I was hooked - the paints were thick and vibrant
and I failed to get the same effect with my paints back home,
so I ordered 5 of them yesterday here.

The other cool items that Misty brought to share were the above stencils
 by Mary Beth Shaw.

I was instantly hooked on them and she sold out of them 

quickly at vendor night.

Just look how fun the wheels and circles looked made into hair below.

Who would have thought!

Lucky you can order them here.  

Sorry to get you hooked too!

So back to the santos...

I painted her out -

that was hard to wipe her out as if she did not exist,

but I will know she is in the background enjoying herself 

with all those yummy colors right?

I sketched the new santos on packing paper and glued her down 

- easier than drawing right on the painting and less distracting.

Then I decided to be bold...
probably something I would not have done before Jesse's class
- never want to make a mistake you know.
I have this framed 'unpainting' which has been
waiting for many years for me
to bring something to life on it.
It is huge and there is no place for it in my home
so it has sat and waited patiently for me to get my act together.
I took a deep breath and attached her to her new home...
welcome!

I attached her with modge podge.

Does anybody know why I shouldn't use this product?

It is half the cost of gel medium, dries clear and works.

What is there not to like?

So now I like her body and dress and I am
slowly building up the background.
Her skirt hoop will be open echoing the cage with a crow stepping out.
And of course there will be some very overfed puffy crows strutting around the bottom.
And maybe I will call it As the Crow flies.
Who knows -
I can change and add whatever I feel like right?
I will let you follow along as
she morphs into a finished composition,
but now I must patiently wait for my new paints to arrive!