Coming Up Daisies

It is finally spring here in Missouri (I am ignoring the freeze warning tonight) and I am delighted.  I was lucky enough to be teaching classes in Kansas City over the weekend and they are a bit ahead of us.  I was so excited to see the daffodils, tulip and Bradford pear trees in full blossom.  St. Louis will not be far behind so I am heading full force into spring with my art as well.  I lucked into some wonderful, inexpensive Birch cradled substrates on the way out of KC so I began today by painting the sides with black acrylic paint.  I then got out some supplies and wrapped my head around what I wanted to play with today.  A few months ago  I saw some alcohol ink painting techniques demoed at my local collage club so I decided to have my go at it.  That shaped the whole composition.  Pictured below are most of my supplies.

To begin, I cut a sheet of glossy cardstock to 3 5/8" x 3 5/8".  I dropped a dot of lettuce Adirondack alcohol ink in the bottom left corner and quickly blew the ink upwards.  As I guessed,  you have very little control so it created the haphazard grass that  I wanted.  However, it did make a thick 1/3" at the bottom with no variegation so I used a felt ink applicator and added some meadow by pouncing to make more texture at the bottom.

Once I was satisfied with the foliage , I used StazOn ink stamp the Seven Daisies stamp repeatedly across the page.  TRICK:  I used another paper to mask so  I could ink up a few at a time creating some more vertical highs and lows in the row.

Lyra Aquacolor crayons and a brush came next to give my field of daisies some color!  It is spring, you know.  MUST. HAVE. COLOR.

 
With the color bringing it to life, it was time to fill in the sky a little.  The one thing about white glossy is that it is in your face WHITE.  (RIGHT PHOTO) I started by being a little creative and adding a sun with one of Kae Pea's mid-century modern stamps, three rings. I love the versatility of Rubbermoon stamps.  After I inked it up with yellow Vivid, I partially wiped off the outer ring with a baby wipe (I liked the hint of it) and then used the corner of the stamp to add rays.  (LEFT PHOTO) Then I inked up her inksplat stamp, and began adding some light aqua into the sky.  Just because. 

The last composition steps were just for fun.  I added some champagne colored glass glitter to the center of each flower with gel medium and took the forgot me not stamp, masked it,  and added it into the foliage one word at a time so it could follow the path of the meadow ink.  

Once the embellishments were dry, I affixed the finished compositionto a piece of black glossy using Scor-tape. And then used that tape to affix to the birch 1" cradle panel.  (ALTERNATIVE: gel medium)  Using my micron .005 point, I added dots near the leaves and around the perimeter of the sun.  The result is a perfect gift for a hostess gift, to celebrate spring,  or even a for a May Day basket.  Mine is going to reside near my blooming orchids for the time being.

Thanks for joining me in my field of flowers.  You can see more of my art on my website and also on facebook at Nancy Curry Art.