Clare Davis Etheridge

Today I tried a new thing in my giant Moleskine art journal which is A3 size and perfect for something like intuitive painting which I haven’t really done before.  I don’t often know where a page is heading when I start and I rarely make layers and layers of paint and techniques.

I am a single layer painting kinda girl, I might draw or collage on top of that layer, but that is more than likely going to be it. The end. Finished page.

So of course I was keen to try some intuitive painting as featured in this week’s Get Messy tutorial.

The main aim is to use lots of colour and supplies and equipment and make layers, all of the layers.

Random is not my top skill, I always end up making things balance or matching the colours or following a pattern even when I think I am not going to.

Part way through the layers for my ‘intuitive’ art journal painting, I thought that maybe I could do a layer of images and a layer of paint and build up that way.  I tried to shoo away that pattern creating thought, as it made me feel a little more in control, but in control is not the idea with this.  I think I managed to follow my intuition and I didn’t follow a pattern as you can see.

Spontaneous – might turn out great might not – that’s the challenge, pushing through the ‘oh my goodness what a mess’ layer.

I started with three colours as a base page and went from there.

Added some stencil.

For this stage, the interference paint didn’t do what I thought it would, in fact it did nothing, just sat there on the page where I had literally dropped it. No amount of water would persuade it to move, I just made my pages wet!  So I stuck my fingers in and circled it about which was better.  Only a couple of layers later I smushed it all in with a crunched up sheet of wax paper because I realized that it was going to take a month of Sundays to dry and needed some help.

A few drops of acrylic ink.

Stamping with a Fanta bottle and acrylic paint!

Not loving that interference paint one little bit…..

By the time I was printing with bubble wrap, the interference paint has all been blended with the other paints with just a couple of drips left.

Lots of white ink blots were created when I dripped ink on one page and folded the other page onto them. I had a little plan to draw into the white, but other ideas took over and I never did.

More prints, this time with a leaf. Some very random leaf prints in copper paint.

Of course I had to add some gold.

More printing, this time with my water jar and white gesso and a couple of finger painted stripes.

I can never resist painting a sumi brush and ink face.

I think I have used nearly every technique in my arsenal on these pages, brush work, printing (with a leaf, a bottle and a jar), blotting, dripping, stenciling and trying out all kinds of brushes and scrapers.

Did I need to add all of these layers to get to the final page? Is this the final page? I think the layers added lots of energy and movement even if most of the layer has been covered by the next.

I don’t know, but I learnt a lot about my process and using different paints and inks together.  Most importantly, I didn’t plan a thing, just went with what I thought would work next.

Thanks Get Messy for another fabulous week in the Season of Contrast.

Happy Thursday x