Down the Rabbit Hole

I think we've all been down some rabbit holes lately, some more scary or deceptive than others. But this particular journey is more of the artistic variety, playing with paints and releasing that inner child. I've done a whole series in this style but before I post them I've decided to show the process just in case anyone had the urge to get colourful and make a happy mess.

And here we go. A square piece of watercolour paper measuring 6" x 6". These are Kilaminjaro paper tiles that come in a pack from Cheap Joe's Art Stuff. They are very sturdy and can handle lots of paint, brushing, scraping, etc. I start by wetting the paper slightly then brushing on some Payne's Grey, plus a mixture of turquoise and yellow in a very random fashion. Making the ol' substrata.

Next I used a stencil of a flower from Stencil Girl. I don't always use stencils but sometimes they are great for a quick start. Eventually it will lose its' 'stencilness' within the artwork.

Now I'm going to start breaking up the background a bit more. This piece will be the exact opposite of monochromatic. I've also started messing with that flower shape using free, loose brushstrokes of bright yellow.

Now to begin embellishing with random repeating shapes. We're about to veer into Impressionism with a dash of Pointillism, followed by full on Fauvism.  I've added that pink but will later subdue it because, damn, it's Pepto Bismol pink.

O.K. here come the dots. Plus I'm adding paint strokes to those petals to lose their stencil look. That pink has been knocked back a bit and the yellow has been toned down. At this point many people would think I should stop there. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes more is more. Let's go full out. This is not Minimalism by any means.

And here's the finished painting (I guess). I doodled a lot with a white pen, added some paint spatters. (Yes, even Jackson Pollock gets a nod) and then..... some of you may question the addition of that blue circular squiggle cutting right through the flower. Well, that was to keep the composition from being too boring and to keep the flower from being too static. I could have made fifty other choices but this is what I did. It's all spontaneous and intuitive and that's what makes it fun. I don't know where each rabbit hole is taking me.

 This was just a demo piece. Here are the others in the Rabbit Hole series that are already complete. Each has a scrap of a handwritten letter on it, penned by a friend in England who was commenting on the effects of Covid-19 over there. Her handwriting is very small, neat cursive and I tried to insert that bit of collage in each painting to add to the dreamlike (possibly hallucinogenic) effect. There are four paintings that are spoken for. The rest I'll probably put on Etsy.