Nothing's lost

Today I just want to share a quick tip that I sometimes use to:- save some paint - fight the "blank canvas" anxiety... - get some awesome texture!

When I am working on a painting, there is often some paint left on my palette that I end up not using. Do I rinse it under the tap?... Nooooo!

The first thing I do is take some paper towels (thin rags work great too) and wipe most of the paint off the palette. Any paint left on my brush? I wipe it on the paper towel too. Then I keep my used paper towels handy. Next layer of paint: same story, but I use the SAME paper towels (they are often almost dry by then).

At the end of my painting session, I take a blank canvas, tear the tissues to pieces and adhere them to the canvas with gel medium! Then, if I still have some paint on my palette from the last layer, I spray it with water and run a brayer, an old plastic card or a brush through it and randomly apply the paint onto the canvas. Done! And this time, as I had not put away my alcohol inks yet, I just felt like sprinkling some on top of it all.

So, what have we got here?... A colorful, layered and beautifully textured beginning of a background! Maybe I'll use it for my next painting, or maybe I'll keep adding to it in my next session (and the one after that, etc..!).

And if I don't have a blank canvas in store or if I'm in a hurry, I let the towels dry flat and store them in a box for a later collage... I also like to think that, this way, the artworks are somehow "related", sharing some creative DNA!

Have a lovely creative week-end!