Mixed Media Circus

This little circus lady stole my heart as I worked on her.
She is the epitome of mixed media, and an evocative mixture of naughty and nice that makes the piece more interesting.

To start this, I took regular manila tags from the office supply store and glued them to the background of the page. I’ve used this background technique several times and it always makes for a lot of interest and texture. I scraped blue paint over the top half to create a sky. For the bottom half, I used my gelli plate to create some green and yellow-green deli papers. I tore them into strips and glued them on to represent grass.

As you can faintly see, I penciled in the circus lady and tent before I began painting them. I used Golden heavy bodied acrylics to paint in all the details. After painting, for outlining some details I used a new Derwent Graphite Pen that my sister convinced me I must have. It’s a pretty cool product, actually — I see why she recommended it. It’s a pen that creates graphite-looking marks/lines which are waterproof/smudge proof marks. Lastly, I pounced on some white clouds and stenciled in the birds.

Did you notice she’s a dirty little bird? One of the things I like most about this is how you think you’re looking at something cute only to realize she’s inviting you in her skirt 😉

I must give credit where credit is due — I was inspired by Danita Art. I saw her circus woman on Pinterest and fell in love with it. There are, of course, distinct differences in my version.

In the end, I am super happy with my Naughty/Nice creation for Day 3 of #the100DayProject.