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ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #49:

This is a close-up of a painting inspired by a dream about Georgia O’Keeffe; it’s part of an older series from graduate school.  I began with loosely painted acrylic shapes and spatters on Arches Cover. After they dried, I used paper stencils and spray paint to create a series of overlapping petal shapes, varying my distance from the paper to vary the density of the paint; I also added abstract outlines of petals with colored pencils. Next I used thin washes of acrylic to suggest some depth.

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ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #48:

I began with a yellow layer followed by an orange one on a piece of hot press watercolor paper. After it dried, I applied fluid acrylic magenta with a moldable foam stamp. I created the stamp by heating a piece of Pen Score with a heat gun and then pressing the foam on top of scattered wild rice. According to the package, you can even “melt away” unwanted designs by reheating the foam.

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ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #47:

Here’s another example of what happens when you start with dark paper instead of white. This time I began with dark green Lama Li Lokta, a handmade paper from Nepal. While it has an interesting texture because of the fibers, I wanted more color variety. I used a crumpled piece of plastic to apply acrylic paint, making an irregular pattern of yellow greens and blue greens to contrast with the color of the paper.