What will the Birds tell? with Susanne Rector

Hello Artistcellar friends,

This journal page started - and then sat around … not wanting to become anything for a while. But then, the path became clear - I guess sometimes I just have to listen!

So, first I started with one of the stencils from the lovely Labyrinth series.

Those stencils are wonderful - labyrinth and you don’t have to construct it!

I picked the ‘soft-curved’ one - it reminds me of a brain - don’t know why, but it just does =P (This one is called Crete.) 

Tracing the stencil with a pen some pink ink - and not really knowing where to go from here …..

And so it sat …. waiting …. until I saw this image on the cover of a digital magazine - and bam - the spark was ignited!

Using the same Crete stencil again, I added some texture to the page - I wanted the texture to be around her head space, so I off-set the texture labyrinth into the top left corner.

I next I added a light layer of gesso over the page - mainly to tone the ink down a bit. But as ink does what it does (and wants) the pink is coming through the gesso quite strong.

I sketch the my inspiration image on the page with graphite. As the image was perfectly sized for my needs, I traced the outlines using graphite paper and then flushed the sketch out with a blue pencil.

I block in the background and the main shapes.

See how the ink is still coming through - as ink will do.

I move on to refining the painting, adding shadow and light values to give the figure more dimensions and refining the birds.

And after a few layers of paint, even the ink fades into the background.

And I find my way out of the labyrinth … listening to the birds =)

Until next time, 

Susanne  

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