JOURNAL DAY 8 self portraits GRACE GRACE

Grace Grace

The above work is from a Photo that Lulu took of me last Sunday. Painting over a photo is a easy way to learn to paint faces. Misty showed use how to do this at Art and Soul 2007. I painted on the photo with the new Golden Open Acrylics.The golden Open Acrylics stay wet longer, you can mix them with regular acrylics for fast dry time, or with the open medium to make it slower or even just use a Acrylic glazing liquid slow-Drying medium. I like the way oils dry slowly and how it gives me time to blend. So I have been playing with the Open series hoping to get more time to blend with them. They are a little gooey but I keep at it to learn what papers etc to make them work like oils. I prefer acrylic in the mix media art pieces so it is worth the experimentation's...and frustrations.

Next I cut my face out and thought about what I would collage it over. hmmmm lets see. I picked up a book I had bought that Misty mentioned in class. It is called "Mary Images of the Virgin in Art" . I found a beautiful painting that matched the colors of my portrait. I scanned it, flipped it in Photoshop to match the direction of the Virgin Mary's face, printed it on thick mat paper and used Gel medium to paste my self on.......(the mat paper absorbed the paint to fast. I think next time I might put a layer of gel medium over the print first...this would also make it so you could wipe off paint easier if you make a mistake.)


The portrait of me tells a part of my Life's Tale well...my tale is about a Virgin Vow and the beginning of having a true Father for the first time in my Life......and a encounter with God....where I felt His presence as a loving Daddy every morning for 3 days.....and in the end came a wedding to my sweetheart!!!

I realized as this portrait came forth that the Tale I promised to tell on the post "Searching Searching" is a tale of my Spirit and not of my Soul. This blog is my Souls story...... I have wanted to start another blog were I can freely share my Spirit's story. So I will post a link to a new blog later and even a link on this post when it is up. (I might call it Grace Grace.)