Me and my men....

'Spined' Mixed media on canvas paper 260mm x 410mm

'Farfalla' Mixed Media on Watercolour paper 390mm x 560mm

....are at one, lol, well at least paintings of men are. I adore their form, the beauty of strength combined with naked vulnerability. Here two very different pieces, the first 'Spined' using the new Inktense pencils from Derwent, really beautiful to use and do what they say on the tin! I did a sketch with some shading with the pencils dry then once complete sprayed the whole surface with water to make the colours come to life. The yellow turned out a little too intense for my liking so worked over in silver wax crayon, which I then scumbled over with silver polishing powder (used for painting models of cars etc) which stuck to the wax leaving quite shiny silver areas while the powder just softened the yellow where I didn't have wax. An unusual painting for me but with much gained from experimenting with different media.

'Farfalla' (Butterfly - Italian) was produced in a similar way but using Derwents range or Graphitint pencils. Again worked dry then once shaded water sprayed onto it. Its didn't quite have the effect I had thought it would and it tended to puddle (I didn't stretch my paper - bad girl) so I blotted and was pretty disappointed. I left it to dry then worked on top with a slightly dried up marker pen and copper leaf. The background was achieved by painting with a wash of Prussian acrylic paint, then used a crackle medium to be finished with a layer of Paynes Grey acrylic straight from the tube. Not a bad result, and very useful in terms of feedback from using the various media, and it was the first time I had used leaf in any work...it has a mind of its own! and still getting to grips with that in order to get the best from it.