Art Therapy: In the News (Acrylic August, 5/31)

| Laura (Createarteveryday)

Yesterday, I read this post from Lucy’s Coloring Book where she describes a therapeutic (and beautiful!) experience she had with her art journal.   Well, the news headlines have been getting to me lately, so I decided to take a page out of Lucy’s book (so to speak) and see if I could turn some of that trash to treasure.    This is M. Graham watercolor and Golden fluid acrylic paint on a 4 x 6″ Blick studio canvas:

080516

I started by digging into the recycle bin, grabbing the front page, and flipping through to one of those headlines.    Ripped it out of the paper and tore it in strips, and collaged it to my canvas with Golden soft gel medium.  It doesn’t take long to dry in the summertime with no retarder added, so I didn’t have to wait long before throwing paint at it, to cover it up.   “Make pretty, make pretty” I said to myself…..and it just wouldn’t be made pretty!    So I covered it with Golden Titanium White fluid paint.   Very opaque, totally covered in no time.

But I needed more texture.    So I grabbed a sheet of white rice paper, crumpled it up, spread it out, and grabbed the Derwent Inktense blocks and started rubbing blue, red, magenta lengthwise on the paper.   Hit it with a damp brush and took another look.   Gave it a few seconds to dry a bit, shredded that one too…..coated my surface with more Golden soft gel, and started laying the strips in.    Still wasn’t thrilled with it, so I dripped some Yellow Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay India ink in, and hit it with a spray bottle of water so it would travel.   Let that dry….and picked it up again.

And it started talking to me.    The yellow ink had created a sun, and there were so many nice wrinkles below it, so I went after that area with M. Graham Quinacridone Rose and Phthalo and Prussian Blue, Burnt Sienna watercolor paint, and just let those colors mingle.    Dampened the sun area and added some M. Graham Quinacridone Gold watercolor.  There was a bit too much distracting activity from the prior layer outside my focal point, so I faded that out with more Golden Fluid paint in Titanium White.    Voila!   (Blick Art Materials is offering Free Shipping on orders of $45 or more through 11:59 Pacific Time tonight.  Your purchases from these links help to support more mad scientist experiments.   Enjoy and many thanks!)

And boy, was this therapeutic.   I encourage you, if those headlines bug the heck outta you like they do me…….tear them up and turn them into something happy.   You might be surprised at how the day (and your mood) turns around afterward.    Happy Almost Weekend to all!   I hope you paint like you mean it this weekend!    Peace.

41 thoughts on “Art Therapy: In the News (Acrylic August, 5/31)”

  5. Such a BEAUTIFUL way to create beauty from the commotion going on in the news. I love it, and I love your thoughts “Make Pretty” and your perseverance until it got there. Love it!

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    1. You are smart. I need to do the same. I’m really glad you like this one, Kerfe. It’s one of my favorites. I love the accidental quality, and I think this is the one that told me I need to do more collage work. Great way to get texture into a painting.

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