Found a Bug in My Painting

It's always fun to apply acrylic gesso to a surface, then work it around with a palette knife or whatever is handy. After it's dry, the textures that occur as a result can be very exciting. Last night I had a swatch of paper I had coated with gesso and I began to slosh paint on it. I love to watch the paint settle into all the little nooks and crannies and lo and behold, I spotted insect wings! The more I looked, the more came into focus. A thorax, some insect-y legs...definitely a bug. I added some eyes, some antennae and voila! Try painting on gesso. The results are never the same twice and it never gets boring. 

Gingko Leaves~Fluid Acrylic on Gessoed Paper

Here's a much better image, taken on a sunnier day. This painting tranforms with each change in light which isn't an entirely bad thing.
SOLD

Here's the completed piece with gold metallic oil paint added. It's actually a terrible photo. The lower righthand corner appears much too dark and dull, the top is too bright and washed out. I had to rely on indoor lighting as we're having a run of cloudy days. If I can get a better photo I will repost.

The second leaf has been added as have a few new colors...mostly Phthalo blue, Green Gold and Burnt Sienna. With each application of paint I allowed it to dry for awhile, then rinsed away the excess revealing some pretty cool textures.

I transferred my gingko leaves onto the first coat of gesso after it dried. I wasn't happy with the texture in the gesso so I added another thin layer over top. Fortunately, my drawing was still visible through the second coat. I traced around the shape of the leaves and added some veining using the tip of an awl, basically indenting and exposing the paper. The plan was to let the paint settle into the indentions but I couldn't get that to happen. I had hoped that the exposed paper beneath would grab the paint but it didn't. It simply rinsed away with each application of acrylic. Maybe I didn't dig down deep enough?

Lately I've been more interested in trying new techniques than in my actual subject matter. Here I've chosen something simple that has a pleasing shape to me(gingko leaves)and finally broken out my Da Vinci fluid acrylics. The good news...they're permanent when dry. :) The bad news...they're permanent when dry. :( Working with acrylics, even fluid acrylics which are similar to watercolor, is a new experience. I felt as though I was in a race with the clock to get the effect I wanted before the paint dried. On the bright side, I didn't have to worry about washing away areas that I liked (if I waited until they dried first) before adding more paint.

I'd like to share my first experiment with the fluid acrylics. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch but gave me a feel for the medium. It also gave me a chance to try adding metallic oil paint to my composition. I've been dying to try this. I added a few flourishes of metallic gold here and there to embellish the painting after the acrylics were completely dry. Between the sheen of the acrylic and the shine of the metallic paint this was a real bugger to photograph but I did the best I could. It might have been smart to spray the painting with matte fixative beforehand but I didn't think of that until just now.