One of the challenges when creating art is the discouragement we feel when it’s not turning out the way we envisioned it from the beginning. At that point we have 2 options: quit and discard it as “ruined”, or keep going and see what you end up with! On this blog post I’m going to share how this Vegas Wannabe Showgirl was created – or should I say happened!
I had recently become a Marabu Artist Educator and this was one of my first experiments with a few of their products. They have this amazing Acryl Mousse that absorbs their Art Spray beautifully! Since I did not know how to paint faces at that time, I cut out a model from a MaryKay magazine to alter. I glued her in my art journal and covered her face with gesso, then dramatized her eyes and mouth with acrylic paint (pic1). Then I covered the entire background and her hair with Marabu Acryl Mousse and a pallet knife (pic2). Next I folded packing paper to the shape of her face as much as possible (pic3).
I must ask if anybody else collects placemats besides me?! They make great masks when using any kind of sprays! Anyway – I positioned the placemat over the head of my soon-to-be Pineapple Lady. Then I sprayed Marabu Art Spray (Raspberry & Lemon) over the placemat, making sure to cover the entire background as well as the pattern in the stencil (pic1). I was really happy with how that turned out (pic2) – isn’t it cool?! I outlined her hair with the Black Marabu Art Crayon and tried to smooth it out (pic3).
Then I felt her hair needed more colors…and I went a little crazy with the different Marabu Art Crayons (pic1). Still, I was relatively happy at this point – all it needed was a little blending! Hmmm…not so much (pic2). What to do? To be honest, at first I was going to rip this out of my journal and toss, but then I thought – what have a got to lose? I re-applied the Marabu Acryl Mousse over areas of her hair I didn’t want to keep, covered her face and the hair area that I did want to keep and sprayed the remaining area with the Marabu Art Sprays. Then, I painted over her hair with acrylic paint, scraped some of it away to reveal the colors underneath, outlined entire thing and added doodles in the hair with black and white Posca paint markers. To finish it off, I added black and white splatters (pic3). Hmmm…not to bad. There are things I don’t like, things that I learned, and things that I really like. Pretty typical of any art we make isn’t it? My favorite thing is the teal/orange contrast, and how the Marabu Acryl Mousse and Art Sprays worked together on the background – simply yummy!!
That is the story of how she happened! Let me know if you found this helpful – and I’d love to hear your stories of what you created when you were at those crossroads and chose to just keep going!