Wasted Leaves, Resurrected"

"Wasted Leaves, Resurrected"

Acrylics/mixed medium

Birch Panel
24" X 24"

The other day, while taking out the garbage, I tripped over something in the snow.

I used my foot and uncovered the object.

I was saddened to see a part of a book.

Looks like someone, for whatever reason, tore the pages out of binding
and
ripped it into sections..

I had tripped over one of the sections.

The pages were in reasonable shape, it was too cold for any moisture to 

damage the leaves.

I picked it up kinda slapped it against my leg to knock the snow off what was left.

Such a waste.

The beautiful words inside were lost ,
The binding was lost, a tree was lost.

Nothing good would come of it ever again.

I took it inside with me, lay it on my work desk and let it dry for a couple of days.

All the time wondering how I could do something to

make it better.

A hopeless task to be sure.

I love books.
 They were my constant companions when I was young,
And all throughout my youth. 

They were my refuge.

I owe Books so much.
 As, who I became, how I acted, and what I knew,
 came from reading books.

When the pages were dry, somewhat stiff and marked,
I saw them as an artwork desecrated, and incomplete.

The idea for this work of art formed slowly in my mind 

and

Kind of came together on its own.

I was saving some of the pages, and reforming them.
I gave them life with colour.

This work of art emerged slowly.

I documented my progress and present it to you here.

I hope you like it.
I have saved the rest of the unused pages.
For another time, another use.
All is not lost, and in my mind,
I paid homage to a once beautiful book.
and helped it become something incredible again.

~~Kathleen

 The cut outs from the pages in the first application of colour.

Final paint and the leaves drying.

Detail of the words on the Leaves

Rough arrangement of the leaves

Glueing each leaf down

Drying after the top glaze is done

~~

"Red Flowers"

"Red Flowers"
Mixed Media 

on
Cradled Birch
20" X 20"

 I love experimenting with new things, and I love taking these products out of their comfort zone and making them work for me in different ways.

The other day I was at the Art Store....
And, I noticed a product by "Pebeo"

It is a glass paint with a high shine, (like glass) LOL

so I picked up a couple of bottles of it.

If it shines it is a perfect product for me.
Yes I purchased a few things while shopping.

More gold leaf,
some new paint colours ,  Pipettes that drop paint where one wants it.
So much stuff, so little time.
Then on to the hardware store to get 1/4" birch panels.
(One 48" X 48"  panel cut in quarters)

at one tenth the cost that they would cost in the Art store.
and finally,

a Palm sander (to finish of my substrates smoothly)
One is never finished adding to the supplies needed to produce Art.

When I got all my new treasures home I really wanted to dive into using the Pebeo colours.
I prepped a 20" X 20" Cradled birch board with Grey Gesso.
Once the Gesso dried I took some Molding paste and spread lines of it down the board from edge to edge with my flat edged palette knife to cover the board with uneven gaps between the lines.

I let the paste dry until almost tacky and applied  Gold Leaf randomly on the bottom  2/3 of the base.
I left 1/3 untouched at the top.

After everything was dry I got my Pipette out (I really like these little tools),
And started drawing lines of Pebeo Apple green Vitrail over the whole board smoothed it out with a very soft brush and let it kinda streak so I had light and darker colours of green.
(Darker where the substrate was not touched by the molding paste)
I used Tar gel to draw  various sized lines dropping from the top to a little more than 1/3 of the way down.

this is what the panel looked like at that point.

I then drew on random "Flowers"  with the Tar gel and let that dry
once dry I started filling in the flowers with Goldens fluid Acrylic in Pyrrole Red.

As you can see from the glare on the painting so far , the Vitrail dries incredibly shiny (like glass LOL).
The yellowish areas on the bottom is the Gold Metal leaf overpainted with the Vitrail.

the above photo shows how mottled the background is with the differences between where the molding paste is and just the Grey Gesso is.
Here, as well you can see the red paint puddled inside the shapes of the flowers.
I, as well added one flower that has fallen to the bottom of the painting.

 The Red flower on the bottom with the stem.

Almost finished, but it did not seem balanced, so I added a bud on the bottom stem and a row of gold leaf pieces (not over-painted),  just above the fallen flower completed the painting.

 Notes:

Working with Pebeo Vitrail is fun. it is very adaptable to any substrate, and a little goes a very long way.
The colours are intense, and very fluid, actually very much like coloured water.
It did not sink right into the molding paste and never lost any of the original colour.
It is highlighted very well depending on the colour it is placed on top.
(In this case Paynes Grey & White molding paste, as well as Gold leaf)
I did buff some of the colour off places where there was Gold leaf, and while it did lift, left a hint of the green.
The colour is very intense.
I can see myself using this product a lot in the future.
I hope you enjoyed my journey with this painting.
~~Kathleen