Mixed Media Distressed Painting In Process

This year’s Christmas card - yes, it is the end of March 2016. So, why am I working on a Christmas card now? Because I’m doing a mixed media distressed painting that involves perhaps as many as 50 or 60 layers before it is finished, and I can sandwich these layered steps between working on other art works including other mixed media distressed paintings. The process involves two different kinds of paint, glue, polyurethane, digital photography, Adobe Photoshop, oil crayon, and collage and dechirage, all mixed up together in a concoction that is sort of like a complicated soup. It is a process that I enjoy doing tremendously.*

At this stage I have 10 layers in the painting, and I like the dominant color, and the images that peak through the distressed layers of paint. However, it looks nothing like the final painting because this stage will be hidden beneath 40 to 50 more layers. That is part of what makes the process so much fun. Images appear, disappear and reappear entirely or in bits and pieces creating a sense of mystery and history, at least for me, the artist. I am depending on the acuity of viewers to pick up on that sense of mystery and/or history, and I know that may not always happen.

Never the less, the process is what makes mixed media distressed painting so enjoyable. I will continue to post photos of the painting at various stages of development up to the final image for the card, which will be posted as a Christmas greeting at the end of the year.

Notes

*Déchirage -I include here a link to Wikipedia entry on decollage which includes a definition of déchirage.