experimenting!

I can't believe it's August already! This summer is flying by. Of course, we didn't get any warm weather really until a couple of weeks ago so that may be what's confusing me.

Here's something I've been working on this week. This is pencil, watercolor, gouache, and a little colored pencil on 6x6" cold press watercolor paper. I've been thinking a lot about ways to loosen up my abstract work on paper and maybe incorporate a looser sketchier quality into the figure pieces in the abstract layers, too. So I played around with it in my sketchbook and tried actually painting a couple of things but this is the first one I don't hate :) It's still diagram-based but no rulers or circle templates this time.

Over the top is a mix of acrylic medium and a tiny bit of white and gold pigment to make it slightly opaque, plus a little water to thin it down. I saw somebody doing a faux-encaustic look with acrylic medium somewhere on the internets and I've been wanting to try it.

I got some 300 lb. watercolor paper to try it on so it could handle the thick layer of acrylic without curling up - plus I figured if I don't like this effect it would be great to collage on for the same reason.