When I don’t know anymore, I usually have a few options:
- I take an existing ugly painting and completely rework it (remember my Operation Cover Up ?).
- Or I sketch with no intent (Nixies and Sprixies that will unfortunately never make it to the canvas).
- Or I play with what i do know.
For this Nixie, Nymphea, I took a rather big canvas (18×24”), set it up on my easel (which does not happen often, when I think about it. I mostly work on my Studio table…) and started to play with textures. Because this is what I know. Because this is what makes me happy.
She is very very heavily textured. Modeling paste, gesso, crackle medium, gel medium… all my favorites are on the first layer. The hardest part in using them is having to wait for them to be 100% dry.
Of course, i also had to play with stencils, because I always do. I tried to apply crackle medium through one and it did not come out the best but I like how it went (you can see on one of the pic below).
I currently have an obsession with blending colors together, so this is what I did for her hair. I love when two colors come together to make a new one, but that we can still see there differences (if that makes sense ?), I love the feeling of the paint on the surface, even when I have to be careful not to break any of the texture created in the previous layer(s).
Nymphea went through many stages, many many layers to have her look like this eventually. Ugly stages happened, as everytime. But I knew she was important. I knew she needed my devotion to her. I knew she would be amazing (to me). She will be the Water Element card in my Oracle deck in the work.
I had to let her be.
A few more pictures:
