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So I decided to work on a stretched canvas. In another life, in the wilds of the land of Vegas, my bestus buddy was the manager for a major Art Supply store. I was the beneficiary of many art supplies that were either discontinued, damaged or just written off as samples. Lucky, spoiled little me. So six deep wrapped canvas panels moved all the way to the land of "M" and have lived in exile at the top of my studio closet. SIGH.

So I dug one out and decided in the spirit of being "Green" I would use all six, especially since they were essentially free, didn't require framing and would work well with my new acrylic techniques. YIPPEEEE !!!!!! So I started with a free hand sketch. Yep, absolutely freehand. If I think about it too much the whole thing gets too stiff. I wanted her to have that wild hair.....if you could see me now you would understand. Her face looks very sincere right now. she is going to undergo a few changes once the paint hits. I more or less randomly divided the background into a kind of quilted affair. Satisfied..kind of...I hauled a jar of thick gel medium. this is very gooey stuff you can model. I have used it in the past to create a raised background for gold leaf, which is very careful, detailed work. Here I used a painting knife and just scraped the stuff on, creating a textured background that was very loose, then a very specific texture for her hair and shirt. I then let all that dry.

What you don't see: The next layer was gold gesso over everything except the face, arm and sides of the canvas. the sides received a coat of dull red paint as an undercoat to real gold leaf. Once all that dried I did some collaging with old dictionary pages. Then the real fun began. I'll save that for later.

Also in the spirit of using the copious collection of supplies already in my studio, I primed a paper mache heart with that luscious gold gesso at the same time I worked on this canvas. I try to have several things going at the same time. I just watched a video of a very famous collage artist who works on at least four or five pieces at a time....great idea ! The heart piece, I decided would go much faster and be a bit less experimental. I did a very loose coat of textured paint as a background, then a some collaging just to create a composition.After living with that for awhile, I was inspired to create an image and went from there to finish the piece.

I completed both works within a few days of each other so now its time to start something new. I really like the idea of working one many pieces at the same time so I am considering two canvases and two icon type pieces. I love the gold gesso, but this time I think the canvases may be primed black.........