Lindy's Magicals

 

I posted this piece of art on Instagram yesterday and had several people ask me to show how I made it. The color is all about Lindy's Magicals! Little pots of gorgeous color and I am going to show you my favorite way to use them. 

When I made this piece I knew it was going to be a keeper so I used a sheet of Harmony Hot Pressed watercolor paper from  Hahnemühle. Also, I made this piece at nighttime, hence the shadows on the photos. Sorry. This sheet of 9" x 12" paper worked perfectly with the Ancient Ruins stencil I purchased at Joggles. You know how I am about stencils. Hahahahaha! Since the paper and the stencil were the same size - the stencil tended to stay in place better. I began by placing the stencil on top of my paper. Ta-da!

I took a tube of Liquitex Basics Modeling Paste and squeezed off some bits of it onto a styrofoam plate. In retrospect I probably could have used more room but I made this many bits of paste on one plate work. Next I used my palette knife and scooped a bit of powdered color from a pot of Lindy's Magicals and dropped it right on top of one those white squiggles of paste. Seven bits of paste with drops of seven different Lindy's colors. 

I used the palette knife to mix up one of those blobs.Texture paste would work well like this, too. I mixed the medium with the color I dropped onto it. Then scooped it up with the palette knife . . . 

. . . and scraped it across the surface of the stencil. If you use the flat bottom of the palette knife it works very well. I knew I had seven colors, so I just kept repeating this process - adding blocks of color. If you are not familiar with modeling paste or texture paste - when this dries the color blocks are going to be hard. Almost like little bits of concrete. You want to clean off your stencil before it dries. So I brought a pan of water into the studio just in case. And I sat it where Aurora couldn't reach. Because she totally would. Hahahaha! Silly kitty!

As I went along, some of the colors overlapped and caused new colors to happen. In some places I got streaks of color inside other color wells. Pretty perfect - hahahaha! And because these powders were not getting watered down, I still had beautiful intense color. 

Just continue working your stencil until all the openings are filled in. You can even use the flat side of the palette knife to 'skim' across the surface of the stencil making all your little sections equal in height. And if your colors mix and blur like mine did - it's all good! Trust me! It will be wonderful! Let me show you.

When you are finished just lift the stencil away and either wash it off or stick it in a pan of water like I did. You can wash that baby later!

This section came out darker than I like - but in the scheme of the overall piece it works very well. If some of your color scoots underneath the stencil - no problem. It is all wonderful! I promise. 

You can see how my green and yellow blended in streaks in this photo. And the yellow and teal at the top. It made more colors. Cool!

And here is the full page in its 100% full sized glory. Hahahaha! Because I can and because it is that beautiful! I have it framed and hanging in my studio. The colors inspire me and make me smile. I know. I'm a geek. Hahahahaha! When I made this piece of art I showed it to Mark and told him I had no idea what to do with it. His suggestion? Make a blog post out of it! Yep! I sure did!

 I love these little pots of powder called Lindy's Magicals. I love how they work and I am very happy with the results I was able to achieve with them. And working on the Harmony hot pressed watercolor paper gave my piece of art a solid base that I knew would hold up to all I put it through. 

Harmony Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper from Hahnemühle can be found by clicking here.