Digging through my portfolio


A few years ago we had a washing machine malfunction - it ran and ran until it had put several inches of water all over the cellar floor. It's a finished basement, and the things that we had stored were not all in plastic bins as you would hope. One of the things that got ruined was my portfolio of prints I made back in art school. I really loved some of those prints, but I ended up having to throw about 85% of them away. The good thing about that is it spurred me on to make more art. The above painting is one that came out of that time of experimenting. I was trying, with acrylic paints, to capture the feel of a print. You ask (or maybe you don't, but I'll tell you anyway) why is there blue painter's tape on that painting? Well, I thought the composition was weak, and I was experimenting with which pieces of the painting I felt were working. It's really not how you're supposed to compose, but oh, well. Here's an isolated detail of that painting.



And here below is a painting I worked on
using some techniques of dropping rubbing alcohol
into wet acrylic paint. Scratching the surface of wet paint,
painting wet paint over rubbing alcohol, etc.



Isn't paint fun?

4 comments:

Stillwaters Music said...

Dixie I LOVE this! The alcohol effect is great! :)

Denise Aumick said...

It is the MOST fun (especially on boards & fabric)! You told me about this alcohol deal months ago & I use it all the time. It gives such great depth and texture to paint.

Blondie ~ Vintage Primitives said...

Dixie,
A perfect example of life handing you lemons and making lemonade. Also, like the alchol effect. I don't do fun stuff anymore. I may do that one again.
Blessings!!!

Sylvia Anderson said...

Love them Dixie, and yes...paint is FUN!!! What I love about paint is that it is so forgiving. :) You can go wild, have a great time, and start over if you don't like it.


"Do not let what you cannot do
keep you from doing what you can do."

John Wooden