I ‘googled’ “Master’s paintings and Nativity," chose some favorites, and printed them in different sizes. Among them were works by Correggio, David, El Greco, Rubens, and Costa. I covered a 12” square board with a mixture of aqua and white acrylic paint, laminated some of the prints to the board with a solution of Elmer's Glue and water, waited for all to dry, and then coated with oil crayon. I painted over these images with pale bluish tempera paint. It took 4 coats of tempera to cover over the oil crayon. After those coats of paint dried I chipped through the tempera paint with a knife, and finally I put a coat of varnish over all. I’ve decided that I need at least 6 more layers of images, paint, oil crayon and varnish, and then I’ll have next year’s Christmas card. Part of the fun of this process is photographing the mixed media work at various stages. Loading the photographic images into the computer, printing them out, taring them in pieces and laminating these back into the art work.* Of course, the finished painting will look nothing like it does now one week before Christmas 2015. That is why I like this technique so much. Each step I take changes the image drastically. It is as though there are 5 or 6 paintings buried within the layers, but only one final image is complete though it is made of bits and pieces of all the others.
Note
* The correct art terms for this part of the process is déchirag and décollage.
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