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Wednesday came a day late...

Warning, the first paragraph is my brain dump on the recent tragedies. Please skip that paragraph if you do not want to read and go below it for my weekly art.

I remembered today was Thursday, not Wednesday, and I missed a post day. Honestly I have been a mess these last couple days from the tragedy in Uvalde, TX. Right before this week's mass shooting there was the mass shooting at Tops Grocery in Buffalo, NY. Both assailants were 18 year old kids. I am not here for debates or politics. It just left me feeling numb and angry. Along with asking WTF! Because of that I didn't do art for a couple days. Even trying to draw my doodle flowers that bring me so much joy seemed impossible.

Despite being non-creative for a couple days, I have gotten some things done for the Farmer's Market this Saturday:

A new simpler design on some of the zipper bags that have been colored washed using acrylic paint.

I did an acrylic paint wash in Liquitex Heavy Body Prussian Blue and Iridescent Medium.

The final blue came out gorgeous and the Converse have a faint shimmer to them. 

I attempted to paint my Okabashi's with Arteza Metallic Fabric Paint. The navy blue pearl over the tops came out really nice. You can see the metallic shimmer where the light is hitting the sandals. I originally painted white flowers on top with the Arteza paints. I didn't like the way it was drying so I decided to go over the flowers with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic and then White Iridescent. That looked better so I continued with ink to fill in details. That's when I realized how hard it was to ink on top of the layers of paint and it wasn't turning out very well. Had to cover up the ink attempt so i used several layers of Liquitex Gesso, then Titanium White (again) and another light layer of the Iridescent Medium. That was looking better however I wanted to tint the flowers a bit so I used a little Liquitex Cadmium Yellow Light wash and had to stop. It still doesn't look right to me. I may attempt ink again to fix it and I do like the textures in the flowers. For now, I had to walk away and let it rest.

I have had lots of compliments on my black WalMart sneakers. I painted them with Liquitex Acrylic Paints and they came out great. I decided to paint a pair using the Arteza Metallic Fabric Paints and compare the two.
My personal pair above
Size 7 new pair below


Both pairs look good and I am happy with the finished look. I like using the Liquitex paints more for flowers. The Arteza are great for cotton swab or dots however they have a rougher finish and dry extremely fast. The Arteza paints are more difficult to ink over. Trying to leave detail lines was bumpy and tore up the tips on my Sharpies. For painting flowers on shoes, I am going to try Arteza regular fabric paints next but only after I finish painting the flowers on my new blue Converse with my most loved Liquitex products.

That's all for me. It does feel good to get back into creating. I do encourage everyone in California to get out and vote on Tuesday June 7th.

Stay well, stay safe, tell your loved ones they are loved.

Robin

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