Killbear Mixed Media Collage

Killbear #2
Artist: Cindi Moynahan-Foreman
11x14 Mixed Media (on hardboard)

This started as a plein air piece that I began to paint in the late afternoon and (unhappy with the results) decided to abandon.

I loved the contrast of the hard, dark, grey/blue rock and the soft, sunlit, green/yellow grasses. I loved watching the movement of the grasses in the gentle wind.

Later that evening I attempted to salvage the painting by adding soft pastel. This helped a little but it still was not exactly what I wanted to achieve.

I then decided to tear strips of paper from some Killbear campground maps and paste them to the board to give structure to the rocks. I loved how this was developing on top of the acrylic and pastel background!

Finally, I took out my acrylic coarse modelling paste and applied it with a toothbrush to emphasize the beautiful rhythms of the sunlit grasses on the rocks.

Detail 1: Collage of campground maps.

Detail 2: Collage and coarse modelling paste

Detail 3: Collage and coarse modelling paste to show movement of the grasses

I am quite happy with the final result and this certainly reaffirms that there's no harm in playing or "moodling" (as Brenda Ueland would put it) when your Plan A (i.e. an acrylic plein air) fails to achieve the results you had hoped for!

Killbear #2 (unframed)

“The imagination needs moodling, 

long, inefficient happy idling, 

 dawdling and puttering. ” 

~Brenda Ueland~