getting messy in the kitchen

bet you thought I was going to do a cooking blog... but no... the paint and paper crept into the kitchen today. the kitchen counter more specifically. I prefer to work standing up, feel like I can see and move better, and this counter is the only place I have to do this. Thank heaven all my paints now fit on this rolling cart (foreground) so what went out was put back just as quickly.
I painted paper... mostly pages from the New Times, but a couple of pages from an old Wall Street Journal and a cool art and culture of Japan magazine I have. I started with a creamy white mixed with gloss medium to begin to take the sharp edges off the design below, yet let some things come through.
After the first layer dried, I began mixing paint and matte medium and put on the second layer, playing with texture... putting in lines
taking some of them away... then letting the paper dry again...
last I went into the paper with a third color, using, in this case, an old credit card to scrape most of the lighter paint off bringing the texture out...
I have 13 pages total, ranging from blue to purple, to red, orange, yellow and green as I did not rinse my paintbrush or pan and just moved around the color wheel... the colors that went on top were often complementary and and scraped on so much of what was under came through...

I will use these painted papers in collage, they will be torn, cut and re-used in my art journal and paintings...

This was a fun and freeing exercise. I've wanted to use paint paper before but always put it off thinking I did not have all the stuff I needed to really do it right. But really what is RIGHT? Now that I realize I can paint on anything nothing is safe...

and this is my new tip... for years I have saved cereal boxes - it is the elementary art teacher in me - but lately I have realized the bags that hold the cereal are this tough plastic stuff. When I finish a box of cereal, I save the box(okay it is a problem) and now I also save the bag by cutting the top and bottom off each end and splitting it. I then have a water proof, washable sheet that next to nothing sticks to. It is perfect for under my projects and I have even used it to make collaged paper, because the paper, if thick enough, will peel right off...