Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I recently met an artist who shared with me all the ways they procrastinate before starting a piece of work. And how ultimately fear drives that process before beginning. I could relate. I had started this weeks project a few weeks ago. It was going to be a messy one; an experiment and I just kept making excuses as to why I couldn’t get it finished. My biggest excuse at the moment (which I’ve mentioned before) is space. Today I decided to let it go. Who cares if my working table is my dining table. Mess can be cleaned up and lack of time (I’ve discovered) can be good for me to stop the overthinking.

So Baby C was taking her morning nap and I got messy and had fun. This week I was playing with Matisse pouring medium. I started with coating four miniature canvas boards with patterned gold leaf. I wasn’t delicate about this process as I knew I’d be layering paint over the surface. I used acrylic paint, metallic acrylic inks and the pouring medium spontaneously to make small abstract paintings.  I also added an old leaf and leaf skeleton to a couple of the canvases for depth. It was SO much fun and without thinking too much… fast!

first process – gold leaf

Because I worked on my canvases this morning it hasn’t allowed enough drying time, so the pouring medium is still cloudy but will eventually dry clear. I promise to share better photos when they have dried.

Until next week… happy painting!

Have you experimented with pouring medium before? What did you create?