Mary Beth van der Horst
SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
The owners of a nearby cross stitch store and I are something of business besties... They refer many of their customers to me and I've framed a few of their own pieces in fun ways that they can display and get some good attention for. So they completely trusted me when they brought in a new piece before the holidays saying GO CRAZY. I think I took that a little too literally. But it was a fun project to do some experimentation on and pull out some tricks I've been wanting to attempt for a while...
Check out their new piece "Tentacle Embrace:"
I wanted a chance to paint on matboard, and I had just been gifted some new gouache paints for Christmas, so I played with how well they work on matboard. I liked the idea of using flat fluid watercolor more than acrylics which have a stickier, glossier feel to them. Of course, painting on black, I had to lay down a foundation of white gouache but that was enough to come back over with regular transparent watercolor and get a perfectly vibrant feel. Now for some reason, that didn't feel *EXTRA* enough, so I added a 3/8" wooden spacer which I DID break the acrylics out for and tried to match their thread colors once again to go through the whole rainbow spectrum. Maybe one or two of you remember a quick story I shared about accidentally painting Arthur's head blue... yeah this is how that happened. Totes worth the drama.
A couple of process pics:
First I made sure to pin and sink mount the cross stitch, book hinge the mat, and then cover the fabric with a slip sheet of mylar to protect it in the painting process
testing to find the right colors...
Check out their new piece "Tentacle Embrace:"
I wanted a chance to paint on matboard, and I had just been gifted some new gouache paints for Christmas, so I played with how well they work on matboard. I liked the idea of using flat fluid watercolor more than acrylics which have a stickier, glossier feel to them. Of course, painting on black, I had to lay down a foundation of white gouache but that was enough to come back over with regular transparent watercolor and get a perfectly vibrant feel. Now for some reason, that didn't feel *EXTRA* enough, so I added a 3/8" wooden spacer which I DID break the acrylics out for and tried to match their thread colors once again to go through the whole rainbow spectrum. Maybe one or two of you remember a quick story I shared about accidentally painting Arthur's head blue... yeah this is how that happened. Totes worth the drama.
A couple of process pics:
First I made sure to pin and sink mount the cross stitch, book hinge the mat, and then cover the fabric with a slip sheet of mylar to protect it in the painting process
testing to find the right colors...
Rick