My latest mixed media collage, The Task Remaining, features a hand painted background, stenciling, sgrafitto, and a photo transfer. While adding snippets of written text from an old book, I didn’t initially pay attention to what was written. As I continued to find and clip individual words, I looked more closely at what was actually written on the page and realized it was the Gettysburg Address. A fitting document with strong words for history and our current times.
I also completed a pastel painting, Blanc Slate. I chose to use the French word for white as a play on words.
For this piece I worked on sanded pastel paper on which I had applied a thin layer of pastel in a variety of colors. I then blended and set that layer with a layer of clear gesso, which added additional texture to the surface.
I liked working on this prepared substrate and letting some of the base colors show through on the surface.