Dina Wakley Media Blog Hop

Welcome Everyone! I am super excited to be a part of this blog hop and many thanks to Dina for asking me to participate. I had a grand time in my little studio with my messy worktable covered with several projects in various stages. Let me start by saying Dina's paints and paintbrushes are swoon-worthy. Yes, yes they are. Here are my thoughts after canoodling with them and ignoring my children chores:

I love adding visual and actual texture in my work and in doing so I am rough with my brushes. I like to dry brush alot as well as scrub the paint into my substrate. After using her brushes I have found that Dina designed the perfect brush for me. (Thanks Dina!) They are stiff but not too stiff. Also, I am pretty sure I could leave these in water for days and days and they would survive.

The paints are divine and were so nice to work with. I loved the way they spread (like butter!) and their translucent quality. It made building up and breaking down layers a joy. The color palette is so versatile and blending colors together or diluting with a little water or matte medium was easy and smooth. The gesso had just enough tooth. The gel medium was soft and has a nice satin finish. Alright, enough with the gushing, lemme show you a couple of the finished pieces:

This is a 6x12 heavy duty canvas that is about 1.5 inches deep. After building up layers of vintage sewing pattern tissue and paint I loosely sketched in her face. Then I collaged scraps of vintage dictionary pages with the gel medium to add texture where her hair would be.

Then it was a dance with the acrylics and my trusty isopropyl alcohol to help her face emerge. I went back and forth with adding thick and thin layers of paint and then using the alcohol to bring back the texture from previous layers.

I live in the desert and so I have learned to work quickly as thin layers of paint tend to dry quickly. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dina's paints have a tad more working time to them. I went back to places I left to dry for several minutes and found I could scrub the paint with a damp brush and the paint was a bit workable. My texture-lovin' heart went pitter-pat and it was love at first sight. 

Will you stay with me for one more? Pretty please?

The substrate of this whimsical piece is a 10x10 inch wooden cigar box. I removed the lid, flipped it over and gessoed it. Tada! Instant cradled wood panel! Next was a layer of drywall plaster and after that dried another layer of gesso. Then came Dina's acrylic paints, pencil, PITT pens and my fav Molotow white marker. Fine grit sandpaper helped bring out the texture of the plaster.

Please visit me again soon and I will have another post with lots of pictures and details showing the layers and progression of this lovely lady with her garden of flowers.

Thanks so much for joining me and in the immortal words of one of my favorite childhood backyard neighbors with her slow Southern drawl, "Ya'll come back now, ya hear?!"

Here is a handy list of all the blogs to visit for more gorgeous art featuring the Dina Wakley Media line from Ranger:

Dina Wakley http://www.dinastamps.typepad.com
Dyan Reaveley http://dyan-reaveley.blogspot.com/
Roben-Marie Smith http://www.robenmarie.com/
Mystele Kirkeeng http://www.mystele.com/
Dawn Sokol http://www.dblogala.com/
Julie Fei-Fan Balzer http://balzerdesigns.com/
Nathalie Kalbach http://www.nathaliesstudio.com/ 
Kirsten Varga (that's me!) http://www.smilingeyestudio.blogspot.com/
Traci Bautista http://www.treicdesigns.com/

If you haven't already, be sure to swing back to Dina's blog to enter to win a complete set of her paints! She is giving away two. Woohoo!