Adding other materials

Working in my sketchbook I experimented with preparing a vaiety of textured grounds.

Starting with simply using PVA glue and tissue paper, I applied colour washes over the dried surfaces to enhance the texture. This was followed by applying medium thickness acrylic gel medium mixed with acrylic paint that I dragged and combed with tools and card.

Trying a board support, I then experimented with found materials mixed with PVA glue. In order to give myself some structure I visualised a still life group before applying the materials to the support.

Going back to my sketchbook and working with my garden as a theme, I prepared a collage from a mixture of photos and cut out shapes from old magazines and coloured paper. The focus was a sculputured head I had produced of a life model some years ago in a life class which I moved around my garden to get some inspiration.  

Building on the collage approach, I took an urban jungle theme for my next experiment working again on a board support. Using images and blocks of text cut from old magazines, I used my memories of working and travelling in London to create an expressive work enhanced with acrylic paint to give depth and atmosphere. The final work was treated with an acrylic gloss medium to protect and bind the surface of the collage.  

Moving onto mixing various materials into paint I gathered up some sand, sawdust and straw which were then used in an expressive landscape still working on a board support.

Through these exercises I have discovered that PVA glue and acrylic mediums in association with found materials can provide endless fun and fantastic scope for infinite textural effects which can enhance the impact of works. I particularly like the expressive nature of applied materials and how textures have a habit of caputuring light and enhancing shadows in unplanned ways. I have also used these exercises to trial the use of wood based boards as supports. Being more rigid than paper based supports, the boards have taken heavier materials such as sand and enabled thicker surface textures to be formed.

I have found that working with mixed materials has loosened my approach and encouraged me to be more expressive. I feel that at last I have discovered the true versitility of acrylic medium and associated support gel mediums. These exercises have given me a taste for working in mixed media an approach I intend to explore further.