'Waterlily Nude Dance' combines the elements of water, nudes, pastel, and thread for my latest multi-media painting. Stashed in two large plastic boxes are rolls of several years of nude drawings from life drawing groups that have been beckoning me to use in my latest series of compositions.
Waterlily Nude Dance (Pastel & Flax Stitching)
The word is out to friends and family to donate wool & threads to my stash to use as a medium in my artworks. They have kept a lookout at garage sales, thrift stores, and even donated their own personal stash of past-time embroidery threads.
My friend Kaarina is originally from Finland, and in her stash giveaway was Scottish Flax thread that is durable, and though it's a natural color and organic, it feels perfect for the textural stitching of the skirt wraps. The flax thread has a long historical connection to clothing and the politics of growing and manufacturing in Scotland.
Read more here about the linen & flax history...
I placed a thick towel under the paper and then poked holes with a thumbtack to guide the stitches and to protect my fingers from the sharp needle piercing the hot press watercolor paper. Sewing paper reminds me of the sewing cards back in the '50s that were given to children to learn coordination with hand stitching.
Working with multi-media lends itself to discoveries that will be explored and pushed till they become a unique expression. The hot press Fabriano watercolor paper grabbed my watercolor from the brushes quickly, so I found it challenging to make and blend, but I found out that my new water-filled brush slides the color in a wash across the smoothness of this paper.
Pastel and watercolor make for compatible mediums, and I think they complement each other very well. I skimmed over spots of watercolor washes with strokes of pastel and was pleased that this paper's tooth holds the pastel particles firmly on the surface.
Gold leafing was applied to one curl of the nude's hair, and an outline was done with a gold pen to enhance the shimmer of the dancing nude figures.
Dance like no one is watching...Minaz
I placed a thick towel under the paper and then poked holes with a thumbtack to guide the stitches and to protect my fingers from the sharp needle piercing the hot press watercolor paper. Sewing paper reminds me of the sewing cards back in the '50s that were given to children to learn coordination with hand stitching.
Working with multi-media lends itself to discoveries that will be explored and pushed till they become a unique expression. The hot press Fabriano watercolor paper grabbed my watercolor from the brushes quickly, so I found it challenging to make and blend, but I found out that my new water-filled brush slides the color in a wash across the smoothness of this paper.
Pastel and watercolor make for compatible mediums, and I think they complement each other very well. I skimmed over spots of watercolor washes with strokes of pastel and was pleased that this paper's tooth holds the pastel particles firmly on the surface.
Gold leafing was applied to one curl of the nude's hair, and an outline was done with a gold pen to enhance the shimmer of the dancing nude figures.
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