In my mixed media work I use whatever works for a piece…bubble wrap, oil pastels, hand made papers, stamps and often times stencils to name just a few. While I’m not a stencil artist, I find stencils offer details I can’t achieve simply with a brush. I like the precise abstract and representational shapes I can add into my work with stencils.
I most often create pieces with flowers because…I like painting flowers! On this piece I started with a cradle board that had once been another painting, my favorite painting surface because it already has layers and history. I added a coat of Venetian plaster colored with acrylic paint and smoothed it out to create a perfect base for papers, paint and stencils to adhere to.
Once the surface was dry I selected a color palette of papers and started laying them down to create a floral bouquet. I give myself plenty of paper designs to play with as I wanted this to be a wild flower arrangement…more is better!
Once all my papers are glued down using liquid and gel mediums, I negative paint around the papers to find my design. I usually use a cream or gray house paint for this, something neutral that my colorful flowers will show up on.
Time to add some stencils in with StencilGirl® stencils Bare Wisteria, Deconstructed Floral Bouquet and Inky Circles. I used the Inky Circles to create a dimensional relief texture and the other two stencils will add volume to my floral arrangement to give it a wild flower fullness. I really love the added dimension they lend to the piece.
I finished up with my favorite marking tool, a Stabilo black water soluble pencil and a few more color adjustments. Actually, rather than tell you all about it, I think you might like to see the piece come together through the WIP video I took of the whole process. Check that out along with the library of StencilGirl® stencils…so many fun patterns and designs to add to your mixed media art…oh the possibilities!
Denise Cerro
Denise Cerro’s background includes parallel careers in both visual presentation and as a faux finish and mural artist. Mural work eventually led her to painting on canvas, and her merchandising eye for putting things together stirred an interest in mixed media and assemblage art. Originally a self-taught artist, once Denise began painting on canvas, she learned as much as she could about painting techniques by taking countless classes and workshops in both representational and abstract painting.
Along with creating in her Southern California home studio, Denise teaches mixed media painting classes and is a founding member of the art collective, F1VEart Studio, in the Arts District Liberty Station in San Diego.
My current mixed media
work merges my art and craft family influences, my use of layered papers and
textures serve as a ground upon which my semi-abstract paintings are
built. I paint what I like and what I know…still life, flowers,
landscapes, figures, faces, textures…while pushing them into abstracted places.
My inspiration is life around me and my curiosity of how I can convey that onto
canvas.
Fabulous video showing your detailed process. Thanks, Denise!
ReplyDeleteThis was a fantastic video and the painting is magnificent!
ReplyDeletewhich kind of stabillo pencil do you use?
ReplyDelete