Paper Paintings

I had the extreme pleasure of taking a class a few months ago with Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson.  If you haven’t seen her work, give yourself a treat and go to her online gallery to see her amazing work.  Elizabeth creates collage pictures using papers that she has painted herself.  Being a texture person, I was immediately drawn to the bumpy surface and variety of papers used to create these paper paintings. During her class, she had each student paint a “simple” apple.

Here is my underpainting to start with . . .

And here is the completed project! Very Cool!

I was so inspired by this technique, I just had to try it again.  I started out painting various papers (sheet music, book paper, shopping bags, envelopes, art tissue and rice paper).  I used fluid acrylic then splattered and stamped and swirled designs in the paper. This paper is then torn into pieces and fitted together to cover the underpainting. There is something very relaxing and therapeutic about piecing together these colorful papers – almost like working on a jigsaw puzzle.  I love the process of how these paintings come together.

I decided to venture out a bit from the “simple” apple and paint a couple of little birdies on a wire.  The substrate is a 12×12 wooden cradle, sketched first and then painted for values only. Here’s a few examples of the process . . . I {love} how they turned out.

My palette . . .

The underpainting . . .

The background progresses . . .

And the finished project . . .

Warning:  this is a completely addicting project!

Have a great week!