PYH&S 2018 Class 26 Lucy Brydon-Creative Collage- "Cooter"

This was a fun mixed media painting inspired by Lucy Brydon's class in Paint Your Heart and Soul 2018 (link on sidebar). It's painted in my mixed media sketchbook/journal, but now I wish I had painted it on canvas. :/

Lucy painted an owl, but I decided to use an original photo of the billy goat we used to own, named Cooter. He had an awesome personality and made us laugh all the time. It broke our hearts to have to let him, as well as all of our other livestock, go. But we hear that he's happy where he is, in a field full of nanny goats!

The steps I have gone through on this piece are not necessarily those of the teacher! For instance, citra solve was not involved in her lesson at all!

I used original gelli prints, torn up, to collage on the background with gel medium, and I also covered the top with clear gel medium, which was a mistake, because it kept the next layer of paint from absorbing into the papers.

I put 4 different colored glazes, drips, and runs on plus a layer of thin white gesso. I then wiped most of the gesso off and sketched Cooter over with a blue charcoal pencil.

The background was painted in with blue and greenish acrylics, although the green isn't showing up too much in the photo.

Face and black fur were added. 

The background needed something else, so I layed a stencil of grapes over it and used Citra solve on a baby wipe to remove the paint, leaving the collage showing. Also, I took some of the paint back off the body, face and horns of Cooter with the Citra solve, and worked more on his black fur and features, then used a ribbon to stencil tiny bluish squares on his body to lighten up.

I added an ultramarine blue glaze over shadowed fur, a magenta glaze over grapes, a hooker green glaze over leaves, and a burnt umber glaze over the shadow on the horns.

I added some lighter colors to the white fur and horns, purple to the grapes, and worked on his face more. I used some colored pencils on a few parts.

After some overall adjustment, I sprayed him with fixative and called him finished! I wound up covering up more of the collage, especially on his body, than I meant to, but the technique was fun, and I will definitely try another one!

Cooter has gotten more likes, loves, and comments than anything I've ever painted and shared, which makes me feel really happy! I hope you enjoy him too! :)