LifeBook Week37: Smiling Heart

This week's LifeBook lesson titled 'Smiling Heart' was taught by Angela Kennedy, who showed us how to use coloured pencils over acrylics. I didn't know this, but the acrylic layer needs to be matte in order for this technique to work. I mixed some ultra matte medium with my paints to achieve a matte surface, as most of my paints are glossy. Despite this, I couldn't get the shading right with the pencils, so I switched to watersoluble oil pastels, which have challenges of their own! Namely, that you can't draw on them, so my page ended up a little different from the lesson, but that's ok!

The only place you can see coloured pencils are the details in her hair. I used gelli prints for the collage in the background and added some moths cut from napkins to balance the composition. She's not smiling (nor was Angela's girl) so the title takes on a different meaning than simply describing a smiling girl. While working on this, I kept hearing this Nat King Cole song in my head, which perfectly describes my sentiments behind this painting. I was going to use some of the lyrics on my page, but they didn't fit. I like how it turned out in the end, although I was ready to call it a fail several times during the process. Just goes to show, it's always worth persevering!

 

Happy Friday!

Wishing everyone a creative weekend!