TRANSFORMATION!

MEMORY KEEPER

MEMORY KEEPER DETAIL

This piece of paper has undergone an amazing transformation.  It has been in my files for 3 or 4 years with  a disgusting amount of too lumpy tissue collaged onto portions of the surface.  I tried unsuccessfully to tear it off.  Not wanting to loose a full sheet of watercolor paper but no clue as how to resurrect it, I stashed it away.  Last week I was going through my discards and took it out again.  I had spent some time with Anne Bagby this summer and remembered that Anne sands some of her pieces.  Aha!! I could try to sand down the heavy ridges.  Somewhere, my husband has an electric sander but I couldn't find it, so I put a little elbow grease to work and the paper now seemed salvageable.  Next, I scraped a layer of gesso over the piece and, in a moment of impulse, I took a sheet of beige tissue paper that was sitting on my worktable and pressed it into the wet gesso and then I brayered a thin layer of gesso on top of the tissue using one of those hardware store type of woolly paint rollers.  I finally had a surface I wanted to paint on!  

I decided I wanted to try painting this on an easel  rather than laying it down on my table.  I haven't used my watercolor sticks in a long time so I got them out.  this is a great form of watercolor for a vertical painting because I have much more control over the paint running.  I also have a set of Derwent Intense watercolor sticks which can be used in a similar manner, i.e., draw with them, dip them in water and apply, apply a wet brush directly to the stick to pick up color and use a wet brush to blend and activate the color.  I really enjoyed drawing and scribbling along with the usual painting process.  The liftable surface was great fun to play with and letting gravity play a part in paint runs added to the final result.   

I am excited to try creating another interesting surface to paint on.