Splashing Through Life - Art by Patricia Henderson

I think I'm finished with this one! Will be entering this and a couple more of my recent pieces to Eye 4 Art exhibition at the Thames Art Gallery in Chatham, ON. Great Blue Mixed Media (Torn Paper Collage/Acrylic) 18" X 24" X 1.5"

Getting closer to the finish! I find it really helps to put a photo up on the computer. I can more easily see what needs to be tweaked, or what might have been forgotten.

Still working through the ugly stages...adding one feather at a time!

A rainy Saturday, hot tea, mellow music, quiet company and collage. My perfect morning! Working on some feathers.... My companion and fellow ripper of paper.

Time to stop for lunch! (Me that is! But this fellow could be fishing for his...)

Here's a peek at where I'm at on this one: Starting to take shape!

Phew! I've been working on this one for over a week. It's been a while since I've done a larger full collage, and I forgot how much work goes into it. But I enjoyed every minute. It's quite meditative. Since I don't have ducks and geese walking around my back yard, I've based this on a couple of fun reference photos, from Paint My Photo and Wetcanvas. This is:                                               Duck, Duck, Goose!                                                                    12" X 24"                                                           ...

This banana has appeal! Get it? A peel! Anyway..... My newest little addition to the Fuit Salad series. And as always, it's available in my Etsy store. Just click HERE to shop!

One morning, last summer I was surprised while driving to work when a beautiful Great Egret landed in a ditch along the road. It was early in the morning and so peaceful. I thought it would be a great subject for a painting. I didn't get started on it right away, but in my mind's eye I could picture what I wanted to do. It was going to be a night scene with a dark blue background and a white moon and the beautiful white egret standing in the light of the moon. It was going to be wonderful! Well....not so much.. I decided to collage the whole background. It somehow ended up being a purplish blue monstrosity! I had made a big circular pattern in the background that was very distracting. The bird was too small in comparison to the moon. I used all the wrong colours and papers in the egret. The whole thing was a mess. I looked at it for a few days and decided I hated it. That's when I got out the gesso. It was very cathartic to slap that white paint all over the canvas. I...

I decided to work on a companion piece to "Puzzled". I had such fun with that one, I thought I'd go the same route again! You can't drive very far in the country around here without seeing one of these guys. The Red-Winged Blackbird and it's song really says summertime to me. I decided to call this one "Country Singer". The background is covered with old sheet music and the bird and cattails are small pieces of hand painted paper and a few pieces of other found papers. This and Puzzled will be entered into the Annual Desmond Juried Art Exhibition and Sale this summer.

The other day, when I was wandering around the yard, I noticed one brave dandelion that had gone to seed. It seemed unusual to see it at this time of year, surrounded by the golden autumn leaves. I was inspired to paint these three small watercolours. Each one is 5" X 7" and are available in my Etsy Shop . Buy all three and get a 10% discount!

I've had a couple of weeks off from work and have been using some of that time to work on a new Paper Collage Painting to submit to the Desmond Juried Art Show and Exhibition. I thought I'd paint something we see around here A LOT. Corn. A lot of corn! I kind of like how this turned out. It's a bit more "abstracty" than some of my collages and was a lot of fun to do. Corny 24" X 12" Paper Collage on Canvas

In my last post I mentioned how you can use things around the house or purchased at the dollar store to create texture in watercolour or acrylics. Here are a few examples of some of the "tools" I use to create texture for my collage papers and for interesting backgrounds. Here I have some cheesecloth, Halloween spider webbing, and a styrofoam tray that holds test tubes. (I get these from work, we throw them out everyday so if you want some let me know. You'd just have to pay for the shipping!) The ever popular bubble wrap (also fun to pop while waiting for paint to dry!), the one with the squares is a mat for the sink, and I can't remember what the other thing is! The white one is for under rugs to keep them from slipping and the green one was for under placemats. The yellow stuff was in the craft section. Not sure what it's called. This texture was created by first underpainting in fluid acrylic, then applying another wash and placing the green mat ...

Here's something that I did recently while playing at Sarnia Sue's and after watching a video of Pat Dew's. Hey that rhymes! Anyway, it was all about texture and composition. We went to the dollar store to buy things that would create texture. Not too sure if I succeeded with the composition! Anyway, I've decided to name this "Ariel".

Well, here it is! My first post to my blog! I'll try to keep you updated on my new artwork and anything else that's going on. Here's my latest painting entitled "Polar Storm". This was completed using traditional watercolour paint over textured gesso. Kind of gives you a chill, doesn't it?