My first life painting!

Ta da! Here it is my first attempt at a life painting/mixed media! Oohh this was a frustrating little project! I had all these ideas. I am a great admirer of One Little House. Maisy has recently done lots of mixed media ladies and I absolutely love them. I've also been watching some tutorials on-line about layering with acrylics and generally swotting up! So there I was with all these ideas swimming around in my head when I realised that I didn't have any Golden Matte Medium which is apparently what I need to stick things and be able to paint over it. And when I looked further I didn't have a lot in the way of things to stick on either, despite having oodles of boxes of what Lovely Man refers to as "Crapola".

So I sorta ditched the mixed media thing and just went for a little canvas painted with acrylics. At least I could do the layering thing and experiment. All was going quite well. The background came out more or less how I wanted it. I had used gesso to prime over the top of my pencil sketch (I thought I read somewhere that was what you did!) And I did layers of thin colours and then used a scrunched up piece of tissue paper to dab some lighter blues and white on. I used a BIG round bristle brush to dab about a bit with the greens and some yellowy tones.

Then came Kelly. Oh my! I've never mixed skin tone before! I had a vague recollection of an art teacher at school saying you mix a pink and then add a tiny bit of yellow. Poor Kelly nearly ended up some very strange colours. Eventually she ended up like this but I haven't a clue how I did it and I'm still not sure I'm happy with the colour but hey! It is the first one and I just wanted to have a finished piece. And how on earth do you paint fine features with even the smallest brush? I retreated to my trusty Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens in the end! Hey! It's mixed Media OK?! I wanted flowers at the bottom and a butterfly but I was terrified I'd ruin it if I tried to paint them. Then I remembered my mum gave me some transfers of flowers from her card making stock and I searched them out. Whilst doing that I came across a rubber stamp of a butterfly and a gold ink pad. An idea started to take shape. Mixed Media. That means you can use anything right? So Hey Presto! One mixed media canvas, albeit a little crude and perhaps childlike!

So without further rambling I present..............

Kelly Berkey in mixed media! LOL!

I now patiently await your lovely comments (be kind ladies!) AND my order from Wallacks before attempting a more 'professional' piece! Oh and if I thought this one was an exercise in stretching outside the comfort zone go visit Kelly's blog and see what she has for us this week! OMG! Face, hands....and now feet too!!!