"Mi Camino" (draft 1)

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." (Psalm 119: 105...NIV) There will be only one draft of this piece. The final will be posted tomorrow with white lettering added.

If you are just now getting into mixed media, please know that this is one of the simplest formats you can use. It is a cruciform format which means that the piece is divided (with an image) from edge to edge...both horizontally and vertically. Indeed I have been stuck on yellow green so here it is in another version.

I stamped the overall pattern over a previously printed color with a stamp that had a fair amount of thick lines. (This does not work well with thin lines.) After drying and spraying this sheet with spray acrylic coating, I dried it again thoroughly and laid it on my clayboard. After positioning the piece, I flipped it over on a cutting board and cut the paper the size of the board (or support). It was then adhered to the board with gel matte medium...followed by placing a sheet of wax paper over it and brayering with a clean brayer. Dry again with a hair dryer.

The black mono printed papers are comprised of three different textures. By choosing black papers that had a completely organic and uneven texture, I established a strong contrast. The black is the unifying factor or common denominator.

You can achieve the "blotchy" application of black  by printing a good print of your choosing, but instead of cleaning off the printing surface, spray with water, and move the paint around by brayering through in different directions.  That action causes the paint to pool in an irregular fashion.

After adhering these papers, drying, and spraying with acrylic coating again, the papers became translucent where the ink was thin and you can see some of the previous layer. You can also see how a bit of gestural mark making or writing adds energy to the piece. (That was created by writing in the ink before printing.)

I will be writing the verse in English and Spanish, using WN Bleedproof White Gouache. If I were not including hand lettering, I would probably print some of the back ground imagery over a portion of the black papers in white Speedball Printing Ink...perhaps over the width of the vertical papers only. And there you have it...just a few more things to think about.