Art by Jane James

We ended our mixed media workshop yesterday and all (almost) went out
to dinner together. It was all great, great fun, although I'm
exhausted today. Here are the last 2 paintings. The black one was one
of those wonderful accidents that sometimes happen. I painted a sheet
of illustration board (18" x 29") with black gesso, then put a piece
of waxed paper that I'd folded in a couple of places over part of the
wet gesso. When it was dry, I took the waxed paper off and a
wonderful, woodcut-like pattern appeared in the gesso and the reverse
on the waxed paper. That's the darker patterned part. I glued some of
the printed waxed paper on top with a single layer of tissue paper under it. In the borders where the pattern wasn't, I glued some papers on for texture and did another layer of the black gesso. Finally, with a light gray pastel, I made some lines and little squares.

On the last day of the workshop, we were to take in some people sketches we had. If you've ever taken a figure drawing class, you know that you end up with heaps of quick sketches. That sort of
thing. Then we used all or parts of those sketches as collage material on a background we'd painted and integrated them by going over parts with paint, etc. Mine wasn't working very well until I drew a face practically in the middle and painted around it.