Tuesday, June 10th
This past weekend I took classes with Michael deMeng at The Stamp Act. Saturday’s class was Head Sea Scrolls. This was my second class learning how to mix colors. This is a huge challenge for me. One of Michael’s techniques is applying a wash…..I understood what Michael was saying during the demo, but when left on my own, I forgot to make a wash and applied a dark layer of paint over my images, definitely not my intention. I then applied more color washes to the rest of the canvas but none of the colors connected to each other. There was no consistency. If you know me well, I am really great at pouting when I cannot figure something out. I sat there starring at my canvas wondering what am I going to do? I used some of my favorite vintage images and now you cannot see them well behind the paint. How can I lighten the paint and not lose the images? After Michael gave me several excellent ideas, I decided I know more about paint than Michael does and tried something else. I applied a wash of Golden Acrylics Interference Violet over the entire canvas. This was the answer. Somehow, applying the same color wash over the entire canvas tied everything together and also lightened the darker areas.
Here’s a picture of &rew from Urban Paper Arts. Have you ever seen someone having so much fun painting?
Here’s Michael posing with our Head Sea Scrolls.
Here’s my head sea scroll.
This was an amazing class. Not only did I leave with a really cool piece of artwork, I am now armed with a better understanding of how to mix colors together. If Michael is in your area teaching I highly recommend taking one of his classes. He’s a wonderful teacher and a lot of fun.