Experiment with Black

One of my favorite online artists is Donna Downey.  She does a video called Inspiration Wednesday each week.  Donna is not only a talented artist, she is only very, very funny.  This piece was inspired by one of her Inspiration Videos.  I laughed and laughed while I watched her create.  Donna is one of those people that as I watch I want to yell at the monitor and say, "Stop, it's perfect now, don't do anything else."  Usually I'm wrong.  Not so much this time. One of the things I love about Donna is her willingness to experiment. She is not afraid to try something new and she's not afraid to make a Hot Mess. Hot Mess is one of her phrased and it is a great one.

I really liked the idea that she started with so I decide to give it a try.  I started with a 8x10 piece of cereal box cardboard.  It's my go to substrate for experiments.  I put two coats of gesso and then I use blue, yellow and purple metallic paint (Micheal's brand)  In person the colors are shiny.  I photographed inside at night so I lost most of glass. The yellow and blue made a really pretty green that looks kind of weak in the photo.  I hand lettered the words with my white Pitt Pen.  It's a permanent ink when dry.  I see more Pitt pens in my future.  Next I painted around all the words with black craft paint. When all the black was dry, I went over the white a couple of more times so that it would pop. I used a piece of sand paper to rough up the background so that a bit of the colors would peak through.  I also put a coat of Liquitex Gloss Varnish as a final coat to give the background just a bit of shine.  This was a little out of my comfort zone.  I had a good time doing it and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Creative Everyday Month,  Paint Party Friday