Second attempts

New masks, more paint

Didn't touch up the bottom print yet

Not touched up

Touched up, but with a much lighter hand then the first attempts

Top collage has been touched up, not happy with it

The right hand side is one I posted above, touched up the biggest circle

Sooner or later all of the information we gather from artist and online classes, or classes in person, will sink into the brain cells. And stay there. One statement that resonated with me yesterday was from Dina Wakley: use colors you like, because if you don't you are not going to like the finished piece. Yeah, boy, is she right. I now have 2 colors that I absolutely should give away. These are Golden paints, and I just plain hate them.

I had already decided after yesterday's blog post that I was not going to continue with the group of 9 gel print collages I had started on Wednesday. I hated them. Instead, I took a day to clean out the garage, do laundry, housework, and then late yesterday return to the studio with a new outlook. That helped a bunch. What was different? I realized I wasn't using enough paint. I wasn't using the glazing medium like I should on the plate, and my shapes were crap. So. Cut four new masks, going for rounded off squares in 3 descending sizes, a kidney shape with hard edges, and a long wonky rectangle.

I also spent more money (was there ever any doubt?) on paper. Bought a pad of Canson Mixed Media in 140 pound weight, and a pad of Strathmore Mixed Media in 98 pound weight. I like them both, but right now the Canson is leading. Both are doing an excellent job of pulling the paint off the gel plate, and that is important. I did very little touch up work on the above pieces. The goal was to get nice, clean edges on each shape.

Today is yard work at some point. But I will start my grounds. Stopped at Michael's and picked up some neutral colors for that. Something else I am going to try with this project is mixing my own color, using Golden's neutral greys as a base. Should be interesting.
Linda