Altered Silver

Just when I decided to join in with Artwords group which offers a topic each week to illustrate or creatively build upon, they came up with this one: Graffiti. Hm, well, I don't do graffiti in the dictionary sense of "drawing or writing on public property," and I don't even live in an area with an active graffiti base of that nature. So I thought I'd have to pass on this week's topic, but as the first submissions were posted on the site, I realized I only had to (pardon the term) think outside the box...or beyond the concrete wall, as it were. It dawned on me that much of my collage art and even my layer-painted paper is somewhat similar to graffiti in that so much of it is built up in layers, one layer working over the top of a previous and sometimes cancelling out what had come before. I really enjoy that grunge style. So leaning on that sense of the term, I hereby jump into Artwords with this graffiti-styled altered book spread which I call "Finish Line."

 
The gesso-prepared spread was painted with acrylics, then a few snips from magazines were adhered.

 
The next layers involved strips of tissue paper, followed by an application of several rubber stamp impressions.

 
More rubber stamps. And some scribblings of chalk.

 
The chalk was subdued with a bit of water. A design stamped to a separate piece of paper was cut out and adhered into the spread. More chalk and a bit more water completed another layer or two.

 
Several colors of chalk were scratched around, subdued with water, then scratched again. A few remain visible, the rest have dissolved into interesting "shadows" of colors within the colors. Finally, a thin yellow glaze was applied.

Then it was declared finished. Happily for me, unlike the risk with graffiti in the field, no one's going to come along and whitewash this spread. ;)




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