Zhuangzi has a fabulous quote that reads, "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be FREE. Stay centred by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate!" Nothing more could be true when working with Atelier FREE Flow Paints, they have the most fluid of consistencies, creamy in their natural form, allowing transparency when used wet or dry, and running wild when mixed with water… all great characteristics for working with paper.
Today I wanted to use red, brown and white to build different shades of red/pink, and use the paints in different densities across a canvas…. here is what I started with:
Next I mixed three shades of pink/red paint mixing up the density of red, white and brown in each cup.
Then I took to the face of the canvas with a stencil and dry stipple brush, adding in random dots concentrating on the bottom and working upwards. Most of this will be covered in later steps so I haven't worried too much about placement or keeping exactly within the boundaries of the stencil. You can see the paper has picked up the paint, but still has transparency…
I also stamped a triple flower image in black ink onto book pages, fussy cutting the image ready to add colour…
I used the same colours of paint as mixed above and used throughout to colour the flowers, adding green for the stemware…
Next I loaded the top of the canvas with the three different shades of paint, and sprayed with water to create drips down the front an across the sides of the canvas, so now we have the same three shades in different textures to the original dry stencilled circles….
I let this dry overnight, but you can hit with a heat gun if you want to keep moving forward straight away… the next step is all about my FAVOURITE Hazel & Ruby Masks…. CONFETTI!! I placed the masks randomly across the background, being careful to pic up interesting sections of the paint, and covering them with the mask, so that later they would shine on through...
I have mixed up a cream Free Flow Paint with white and touches of brown, and then diluted it a little in a spray bottle with water… and then I sprayed the paint atop the mask being careful to leave peeks of the paper and paint background. Because the paint is transparent this muted the background in some sections, and also emphasises the seams in the original paper layers…. and continues the circle theme.
Then it was all about adding finishing touches to the flowers with more of the same paints… deepening left over cream to make a beige shadow for the outside of the flowers…. the finishing flower outline and dots were made with a Molotow Paint Pen, the 207 skin pastel is a great all around pink!
Here are the X-Press It Products I used in today's tutorial
Atelier Free Flow Paints
Burnt Umber
Pyrrole Red
Titanium White
X-Press It TripleTac
X-Press It Canvas
Hazel & Ruby Confetti Masks
Molotow Paint Pen 207 Skin Pastel
I hope this has inspired you to flow free with paints, and accept that where you start will be so different from where you began… in such a good way! Enjoy….
