Self Portrait - Watercolor, collage, and other media

 Self Portrait, 2011
Watercolor, mixed media
15" x 11"
Wanda M. Spangler-Warren

Maria had our watercolor class try a technique used by contemporary artist/blogger Myrna Waknov.  We applied random watercolor washes and textured the wash with various materials, such as rubber stamps, bubble wrap, plastic objects, etc.  We added a layer of tissue paper applied with an acrylic medium.  We then used a  reference photograph to create contour drawings, paying attention to the areas of dark, medium, and light tones and delineating them with tonal shapes. This drawing was overlaid onto the collaged background and rendered in watercolor.  Some stamped images completed the background and the portrait.  This was fun, and I tried this technique on some jazz music themed paintings which I'll blog about soon.