My Favorite Art Book & Giveaway! - Holiday Memories with Claudia Neubacher

Hi, servus and thanks so much for stopping by today!

Today I would like to share with you a painting that was inspired by a lovely trip to Turkey some years back and by one of my actual favorite mixed media art books - Nathalie Kalbach's "Artful Adventures in Mixed Media". 

What I especially like about Nathalie's book is, that unlike with many other mixed media books it doesn't just give tons of technique loaded recipes that would only have you use tons of different media and tools to follow them (and therefore kind of copy the projects), which leaves little or no room for own ideas or interpretations. On the contrary - her book focuses on getting the ideas first and then pick the right artistic means to transform your ideas into artwork that has meaning and depth.

Nathalie's book talks about many different ways on where to draw inspiration from (like from nature, the city, trips to foreign places,...), how to document and collect that inspiration and how to make everyday life's inspiration become the core of your art projects. From my point of view (as a former arts teacher) this is what you need to make your artwork have meaning - because a piece of art only becomes "alive" when there's a story the artist needed to tell with it (be it abstract or more objective).

That is what I tried with this little 8''x11'' painting on heavy mixed media paper - to capture a lovely memory from a wonderful round trip through Turkey. There was this village with many beautiful old and weathered wooden doors to abandoned houses and I took many pictures of them. One became the source of inspiration for my painting. I remembered the doors when flipping through Nathalie's book and coming across a page with an amazing door (see image below).

So what I did was print a colour copy of my picture for reference (one of the whole door, another of an enlarged detail so I could see the texture that I wanted to reproduce in my painting). 

StencilGirl® stencils used in this painting: 

Block Door Climbing and Purpose Ladders by Angela Cartwright

October 2016 - Stencil Club Kit by Mary Beth Shaw

June 2016 - Stencil Club Kit by Carolyn Dube

City Stories Stencil by Cathy Nichols

Open Buildings Stencil by Carolyn Dube

To create my background I used DecoArt Chalky Finish paints and a palette knife. I had first marked the area for the door so I could eye-ball where to create the background for the door and the background for the walls. As you can see I let both areas overlap loosely. I mixed some of the paints on my palette sheet, others wet on wet directly on the substrate. I went in with my heat tool to speed up the drying time. 

Using the Block Door stencil and a palette knife I applied DecoArt media clear Modeling Paste to the door's area. The dry Modeling Paste would work as a resist to preserve the paints underneath from being covered up during the following painting steps. 

While the Modeling Paste was still wet, I doodled some flowers into the centres of the four door panels with a sculpting tool. Then I left my painting to dry naturally. 

On my photograph there were stone carvings around the door, so I added some orange Chalky Finish paint in two spots using the stencil from the June 2016 Stencil Club kit. I used the palette knife again (instead of sponging the paint through the stencil) to create a thick layer of paint.  

The lovely tree from the City Stories stencil was added using DecoArt media black Modeling Paste. As I didn't like to have crisp edges this time and wanted a more painterly look, I took a rubber tip paste modeling tool and smudged the edges.

Once the paint and paste had dried, I went in with an aquarellable black pencil and traced some of the door panels' outlines. I also drew the rest of the building. I activated the black pencil lines with clear water using a detail brush. 

Then it was time to add several layers of paint washes to the door to create depth and make the preserved areas on the door pop out against a darker background. I used DecoArt media fluid acrylic Primary Cyan and kitchen roll to wipe the paint off the Modeling Paste areas while it was still wet. 

Wiping is better then dabbing, because with dabbing you will also remove paint off the crevices and areas in between again.

I have done a short video for you showing me adding several blue wash layers and also using the left overs from the wash on my palette to bring the same colour to other areas on my painting (which always adds more depth and helps fuse a painting really well).  You will see me add and wipe back, add more, wipe back again and so forth. Why didn't I just add one thick layer in a single go, I hear you ask? Well, because the look of several light layers will give you better control and a more organic look in the end, whereas the thick wash layer will cover up areas more evenly - which mostly looks quite "flat". 

What did I do next?

Once the wash had dried, I dry brushed the black tree with some brown Americana acrylic paint and the door with a light green-blue and beige. 

The final dry brushing layer on the door was applied with orange Chalky Finish paint. The leftovers on my palette were turned into a wash and used to shade corners and other areas.

To imitate some cobble stones in front of the house I used the small Open Buildings stencil and beige Chalky Finish paint. This time I used a cosmetic sponge to apply the paint through the stencil. 

Voilá! I was quite content with how my door looked. I know the tree somehow "embraces" the old house from behind (or maybe caresses it)...but actually I love that idea. 

I found that the area at the bottom of my painting lacked a bit of interest. I remembered one of Nathalie's paintings in her book, that shows some text and stencilled on dots patterns on the ocean in front of Sydney's amazing opera house and I decided to do something similar. 

I stamped a quote (from a Red Lead rubber stamp) onto some tissue paper and glued the top layer onto my painting using matte DecoArt Decou-Page. 

To fuse the text area with my painting I lightly scraped some Chalky Finish paint around it with the very tip of my palette knife. I also added scraped on paint to other areas on my painting - repeating the same thing in slight variations in different spots always strengthens composition. 

Then I finished off my painting with adding some lovely turquoise dots here and there using the small stencil from the October 2016 Stencil Club kit. 

A final comparison - yesssss! My goal had been to capture the feel of that beautiful weathered wooden door with the ornaments and the contrast of the fresh turquoise against the warm subtle orange of the sandstone, the feel of the dry heat and the gentle breeze there that made it less stingy.

I think I can call my goal achieved. Yay! I hope you like my painting too! Thanks so much for being with us today!

One lucky winner will receive a choice of $50 worth of stencils designed by Nathalie and a signed copy of her book!

Enter by commenting below by June 10th, 2018. One winner will be chosen at random on June 11th. Winner notified by email.

Happy stencilling! 

Claudia 

xxx