My old friend, yupo paper

It has been probably 8 months since I did anything with yupo paper.

That is a plastic paper I used exclusively in 2016.

Then I got involved with abstracts on 300# watercolor paper and forgot about yupo.

Several artist friends rented a room at the ArtCenter and "played together" for a morning.

I decided to use my last sheet of yupo.

This is watercolor sprayed through cheesecloth.

When it drys I remove the cheesecloth and spray it with a fixative.

I used stencils I had made to create this design.

I had an old background on a canvas board that I wanted to finish one way or another.

I added collage and the collage just seemed to sit on top, not a part of the composition.

So I mixed a thin off white paint and used a kitchen spatula to smear the paint around.

What fun!!!  I will definitely use that again and I was happy with the result.

I am not sure if it is done but it is further along than it was.

The Holiday Season is upon us!

Keep painting.  It is a good stress relief.

Happy PPF and thanks to Kristin and Eva for managing our "zoo"

P.S.  Almost forgot my blooms this week.  They are gorgeous and too numerous to share them all.

Inspirations right in front of us

We have lived in this house for 15 years.

For most of the 15 years a sunflower bouquet has sat on my credenza.
I have been struggling with doing collage (I still hear my art teacher saying "collage is not art).
I took a new Saturday class at the Art Center and our project was to do a mixed media.
One evening I looked at the sunflowers and thought "why not?"
It is only paper and I didn't even buy it, it was supplied.

And I don't need to be so tight about paper when I happily spend fortunes on silly shoes.

So I sketched an idea in my giant sketch pad and then went to work rounding up scraps of paper.
This is a VERY simple collage, for the most part, one piece of paper per petal.
But when all was said and done, I am happy with the results.

We have had cooler weather here in Florida and my orchids have gone nuts.

This was a scrap that I tied to the palm 4-5 years ago.  Each year it gets prettier.

This one was repotted last spring and obviously likes it's new digs.
Wishing all a Happy PPF

You Tube Junkie

I think I have confessed before that I am a You Tube junkie.

When I am stuck, like recently when I decided to try using more collage in my work, I always 

turn to You Tube for help and new ideas.

Beyond the "dirty pour", there is another viral idea out there.  That is using Citrasolv and National 

Geographics to make unique papers for collage.  You can look it up for yourself to see how it is done, but I hustled off to the Goodwill Bookstore and bought two old National Geographics and ordered Citrasolv online.

This is NOT a pleasant process.  It stinks and it is messy.
You have to lay the pages out to dry

And here are some of my results.

I thought the results were amazing.  In some cases I could just pick a 6 x 6 area
and frame it and be done.
I did two magazines so have pages coming out of my ears.
Hopefully next week I will have some new collage work to show.
Wishing all a Happy PPF

My single orchid became triplets.  I love it when that happens.