So pleased that I finished "Bathtime"! Got it done in time for my private showing :-) with two friends on Wednesday last week, who came over to have wine by candlelight and talk about what we are working on.
The background began with a layer of Daniel Smith's gold gesso, then a layer of Mars Black Heavy Body acrylic (using bottle caps to protect the areas that were to be bubbles), then clear granular gel. After that I started painting with interference blue, violet, and a touch of red. I used gel medium to get the iridescent glass balls to stick initially and then dropped Crystal Lacquer onto them to make sure they stayed. I finished it off with layers of gel medium, including one tinted with Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) that really helped to unify everything.
The inset panel is aquabord, image stamped with dye ink, background originally chroma jewel watercolor sprays from Stamp Zia, then gel medium on top, acrylic paint on top of that, and finally 4-5 layers of clear tar gel. I am pleased with the result even though I originally envisioned this as a much darker piece. But I did lots of fun things (using the gold gesso for one) and got to play with neat textures and interference paints. Love those!
My friends liked it a lot--said the different textures all worked, loved the effect of the interference paints under the layers of gel medium and clear tar gel, liked the brushstrokes, loved the way it looked different under different levels of lighting . . . all in all a good reaction.
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Separate revelation: I realized that I don't really think visually, so what I am doing messing around with all this stuff??? Sigh.
