stains

in college i liked to work on tea-stained paper a lot (a trick i recall from my childhood babysitter's constant crafting). you can never perfectly control how it will turn out, and i love the dirty, worn but beautiful feel of it. a few months ago, needing to create something but not having the time or space to start some new oils, i revisited the tea paper, this time making use of the stain patterns as an active part of the picture, not just background. here are a couple i finally completed. the first is tea-stained, the second is red cabbage water-stained (which initially was a brilliant blue/purple/magenta, but faded to more of a blue/green). both wallpaper patterns i painted in watercolor, then sealed the paper with matte medium, and painted the objects in oil. i placed the organ-like objects over the most prominent blotches on the paper, to give the impression that the hanging subjects are the stain-makers.

Untitled Stain (pink) (2012)

Untitled Stain (blue) (2012)