Letting Loose

A few times a week, I’ve been going back to the love of my youth: just mucking about with paint. This is mainly an effort to loosen up my style. Last week, I used spices from my kitchen as the basis for a few of my paintings.
It all happened by accident. I was hosting a North African themed party and along with the hummus, cous cous and the spicy roasted veg, I wanted to make some unconventional place mats. So I swirled glue on poster paper and sprinkled cumin, cinnamon, curry and chili flakes over my patterns. After a little coughing and shaking about, I really liked the lines I created.

Here’s a close up of the spices melded to the page:

Once the spices were dry, I sprayed them with a clear acrylic and realized the place mats were too delicate to put plates over. Unconventional? Hum. Unpractical? Not exactly.

I then incorporated charcoal and pencil into the “place mats” to work out a composition.

Next, I covered my sketch with paint.

My eyes no longer water from the chili flakes and place mats are now paintings. Life is good!

A bientot.

PS-  See Spice Man, on my painting page, another painting created in this method.