Inspired By: Light

It's again the 10th of the month and time for the "Inspired by" creation! But what is Inspired by? Every month awesome Marsha and I choose a subject to be inspired by. It can be a movie (link), an item (link), a designer (link), a painting (link) or a piece of music (link). Then we make something inspired by that theme or a piece of art and share it with you and each other on the 10th of the month.

Welcome to the first Inspired By of the year! With all the Holiday hustle and bustle we wanted to have something light as the first Inspired By of the year. But oh boy, that provided a puzzle! We thought about several options until Marsha had a stroke of ingeniousness (she usually has those!). If we want something light, why don't we use light! And so we did.  

An open subject like this offers me the possibility to do absolutely anything. First I though about altering a light or a light bulb, but then decided to add the light bulb into another project. During the holidays I've also been reading a book Marsha gave me, titled "Acrylic Solutions". So once again, I combined two sources of inspiration and tried my hand on doing an acrylic painting. 

My first thought was to do some acrylic layers and then add a touch of mixed media on top by adding a light bulb to the canvas as the last detail. As you can see from the picture below, showing my whole piece, I decided against that in the end. Somehow the light bulb in the center of the burst looked odd and out of place. Maybe even a bit too underlining.

I started the piece by adding some pieces of book paper and washi tape to a canvas. On top I then added white and clear gesso and then started layering acrylic paints. On some places I used them like they are, creating a more opaque layer and in some places I mixed the paints with Soft Matte Gel creating a glaze. 

Oh boy did I enjoy the painting process! I layered and layered and enjoyed playing with colors. I also removed the wet paint with a baby wipe and added stenciled layers here and there. There's also some pencil scribbles underneath and in between the layers.

As the main source of inspiration was light, I used a huge burst of light as the focal point of the piece. I first painted the shape using white gesso, then high lighted some parts using a white Sharpie. I also added some pencil work around the composition. The words around the burst read "valo" which means light in Finnish.

Then coated the whole burst area using clear crackle paste. After the crackle had dried overnight, I added diluted black paint on top and then wiped the area clean leaving the paint only into the cracks, really highlighting them.

I added the same crackle treatment to the upper left corner as well where I had previously made a black(ish) patch. I made these darker patches by making a glace of black acrylic and painting with it to three places around the canvas. Because what would light be without darkness? You need the other in order to define the other. Absence of light makes you realize that there is such a thing as light.

I enjoyed making this piece so much! It now hangs in our living room and I have the urge to do another one! But now it's your (and my) time to go visit Marsha and see what she has created (link)!

Thank you for your visit today!

Materials: Talens, Ranger, Prima Marketing, Sharpie, Teippitarha, The Crafter's Workshop