To Have A Heart

This is my latest piece. The girl started out as a magazine ad for a watch. I scanned the ad, cropped out the watch, and printed the image on a transparency. My original thought was to do a transfer onto the canvas, but it didn't work. Transfers are my Achilles heel. I painted the 5 x 7 canvas teal, and adhered the transparency with gel medium. I did a wash with white paint and scratched the movement of her hair with a knitting needle. I also made swirly doodle scratches in the water areas. Click on the photo and those details are more apparent. Next step was adding the india ink. I lifted the edges of the transparency and let the ink flow under it. I got that cool coral shaped spot in the lower right hand corner, and the moldy looking area around her heart. Dragged india ink along the side and used different nibs for different thicknesses of flowing hair. Rebecca Sower Flourishes stamp in corner. Painted a heart (which I'm not totally happy with, I may tweak it later). Added some white dots and the words printed out on my Dymo machine. It's so weird, but almost everything I create is the result of a happy mistake. This project started out completely different in my mind. I was thinking teal, fuchsia and white squares, maybe a little tiny bit of orange, a closeup of a face. Oh well, maybe I'll go in that direction tomorrow!!