Exploration 1 -- More about My Favorite Way to Use Abstract Composition Background Masks

Yesterday, release day for my 4 new Abstract Composition Backbones Masks, I showed a finished piece --

--and I promised to give step-by-step photos of the journey I took with this painting.  That stepped journey starts here:

The photo above shows Step 1:  I placed a paint-stained mask -- Abstract Composition Backbones Mask 2 s865  (cut from its original 6" x 6" frame) -- onto a sheet of Yupo previously stained pale blue and spattered with white.

Below you can see applicators on the far left and, on the right, my palette paper spread with colors from a dance scene in a Bollywood movie....blue, purple, magenta, gold and copper.  

  

This was my first time to use these applicators for applying paint.  I'd ordered them after seeing them advertised on Facebook, and when they arrived  --

-- I opened the package to find myself owner of swabs that are actually meant to be cleaners for firearms!  I don't own a gun and never will, so it got a chuckle out of me when I opened this package!

I was soon to learn that these swabs probably do work well on most surfaces for applying paint in small areas, but it turned out the Yupo surface resisted the paint.  Because of that resistance, I added more paint ... and more ... and as I would learn later, the result was a lot of paint bleed-under.  

Above:  I started to add blue and purple heavy-body acrylic paints.

Below:  What my pallet paper looked like as I continued to add my "Bollywood colors" --

The photo below shows the Yupo after I've finished adding my "Bollywood colors":

And the next photo shows what was revealed when I lifted off the mask:

At this point the bleed-under became clear, so I grabbed a permanent white "pump-marker" (I have several brands; they all work the same.)

I brushed white acrylic paint around the edges of the established shape, giving it smooth edges.  Then I started to use the marker ...

  

... and at this point I decided to add just two more white lines ....

Above:  One of the added lines -- a really short, slanted one -- rests at the top and another, more jagged line now rests near the right bottom area of the central shape.  Both the additions visually connect the white lines within the central shape to the white areas that surround the shape.  

Below:  Blue arrows point out the off-white areas that nearly surround the dark-value focal area.  Altho my last step was to add white marker, it was the  mask that established these wide, near-white areas.  Their presence heightens drama in a specific location, with the goal of capturing the first glance of a viewer.  Notice also that the other shapes and lines -- also created by the mask -- act as pathways of near-white, taking the viewer thru the entire piece, giving evidence that this art offers something of interest everywhere, with the "climax" of interest happening in the focal area (marked by arrows.)

Above:  As you can see, these masks are designed so the artist can easily extend the image from 6" x 6" to a larger size. 

Thanks for coming to check out my blog today!  To follow it by email please use that option in the upper right sidebar.  To scroll thru the pages of my StencilGirl masks and stencils, please start here.