My abstract mixed media art

Early this month I went to the Summer Art Experience in Canberra.  It was a 5 day summer school run by the Artists Society of Canberra.  Tracey Creighton was the teacher of my class called "Organic Abstracts."  She was a great teacher and pushed us, so it was a challenging time and we were all exhausted by the end of each day - making gelli prints, using binder medium for collage, acrylic paint, string, cardboard - anything and everything to make our abstracts on canvases.  Between the layers we ran outside to dry layers!

We began with a series of exercises on three small canvases using one colour and black and white.  We kept turning them around to see how they went togther .  Here is my result





Using a larger canvas 60 x 60cm  we had the theme "Circles and Lines".  We had to keep to the same colour we had used in the exercises but could add either a complementary colour or an analagous one.  And of course these could be mixed.  I added red-gold which I love as a contrast.  Some more gelli printing gave me plenty for collage and layering but I had trouble making it unified until I glued rice paper over much of the work, scratched some away and added details in pen/paint.  Here is the result



Another 60 x 60cm canvas was used to paint several layers, scratching them back etc. We divided the canvas into 4 and could use similar colours to the last one.  I added red for the big circle as I always like bright colours!  We also learnt about the use of apps such as "Diana app" to contribute to our art.  But we didn't actually use them in the class as there was no wifi available and not everyone had a smart phone.  But the demo showed what could be done. and sure gave some inspiration.