Playing with Paint

Judging by the state of the cars coming into town this morning, there must have been heavy snow in the mountains overnight. Down here in Abergavenny, nestling cosily between Sugarloaf, Skirrid and The Blorenge, wet white stuff is falling from the sky in large enough amounts to make going for my weekly constitutional with the walking group seem less attractive than spending the morning in my attic painting collage papers!

I chose a selection of tissues papers that I had already painted with acrylics in slightly ‘fauvist’ colours and then proceeded to decorate them with dots and squiggles and wavy lines – the sort of thing a rising five-year-old might enjoy at Infant School, or should that be in their ‘Early Years Setting’, since nowadays, giving something a new label seems to be a common way to give the impression that progress is being made!

I’ve just made a useful discovery! Using a scrunched up tissue with the leftover acrylic paint in my palette produces a kind of ‘marbled’ effect on collage papers – and the bonus is that it helps to avoid some of the palette cleaning at the end of the painting session! That has to be a good!

As time goes on and I make more collage designs, I’m beginning to develop a preference for working with tissue paper that has been painted with acrylics. The paper need not cost you anything; gifts often come wrapped in white tissue and you can iron it if necessary, though, on the whole the painting will smooth it out. I recently bought a single sheet of glassine paper, costing 12p, from a local shop to protect one of my pastel paintings that was going on a journey. Imagine how my eyes lit up when the shopkeeper wrapped my momentous purchase in four full-size sheets of tissue paper, as well as the bubble-wrap!

And I’m doing my bit for ‘recycling’ at the same time!

More on how to use painted papers to make a card like this one later in the week....

Meanwhile, here’s a direct link to one of Geree’s ‘stores. (Sun and Surf Shop). And here is the link to her Tropical Hot Chili Peppers.