He Whispers

Sometimes it is hard to hear the whispers among all the chaos and busy-ness of life.  There are messages all around and sometimes I miss them because I am worrying and scurrying about on things that really don't matter or make a real difference in my day to day activities.

I was drawn to these words cut out from an old book..."he whispers..... I knew I wanted to use them in my next painting.  I took an old canvas that had a class project on it.  Loosely applied the DecoArt Media gesso with my palette knife and added pieces from a watercolor project I did as well.   Leaving some of the old painted background visible, giving it depth against the white gesso.

This is my large collage box of ephemera, collage pieces and scraps of my art.  So, I applied some of the watercolor pieces of the portrait and background of the pieces you see in the box. Never wasting or throwing anything worth saving out.  Some would cringe at the thought of tearing up a piece of art.  But, I liked parts of the painting, but did not like it as a whole.  So, I love putting past work into a new design.  
Added some light modeling paste in and around the collage pieces to help blend them into the painted background.

Adding more gesso and using the modeling paste along with a lace stencil to create more interest into the background.  The bird was taken and cut out from my sketch book and applied to the canvas as well.
Since discovering water soluble oils, I decided to proceed with oils over the gesso, watercolor and acrylic background.  A true mixed media painting in every sense of the word!

Work in progress and kept coming back to her over the course of the week.  Tweaking and adding, listening and painting.  Painting and listening.....

She will remain in my studio to remind me to listen to the whispers more closely.  Not to get too busy that I miss them or ignore what I am suppose to hear or learn.

Thanks for stopping by!

Ursula
xo