When you add a collage picture (like from a magazine) to an abstract painted surface, it can be hard to integrate the different surface sheens and colors so that it looks like the collage pieces "belong".  Image transfer processes may be just out of reach if you don't have the right printer handy. And if you're not comfortable with your drawing skills, what can you do?

You can trace the image you want onto a transparent overlay and glue it onto the painting with gel medium, then continue to paint over it if you wish.  By transparent overlay I'm referring to a wide variety of papers and clear acetate-like films that are mostly transparent.  Amazingly enough, regular white tissue paper and a variety of thin "rice" papers, even tracing paper, becomes mostly transparent when saturated with acrylic gel or medium.

The painting above began with collaging some textured papers onto the surface and then painting over them with washes of yellow, orange and green.  The image of the girl throwing a beach ball was in a magazine ad.  I traced it first onto Dura-lar  film ("the acetate alternative") with a waterproof marking pen and painted the swimsuit on with acrylic paint. 

I wanted the sensation of movement, so I cut out the ball and some strips of color to mimic the movement of air and glued them onto the painting first with matte gel.  Then I traced the image of the girl again onto a lovely "rice paper" with white fibers in it.  Then I glued the rice paper on, saturating the fibers with matte gel so that they became transparent to translucent when dry.  And lastly I glued down the Dura-lar film. 

Even with all those layers, the result was transparent enough to give wonderful depth while also illustrating movement.  So try this!  It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

There was the young man who proudly sported a hawk feather in his cap, added to his bright green t-shirt, making him look like a modern day Robin Hood.  As he gazed at all my bird paintings and nest collection he shared his story of discovering a fully intact but dead, red tailed hawk at road side.  A native American man appeared and let him participate in the ceremony of honoring the bird and harvesting the feathers for a ceremonial headress.  The magic of those moments for this young man in his coming-of-manhood years rested like a blessing on the studio.

One visitor, a woman who had moved to Costa Rica in her retirement, said that she treated herself to a trip back to Sonoma County each year during the ARTrails season in order to get her art fix for the year, since she had not found a similarly dynamic art culture in her new home.  She spent quite a while in the studio, took pictures in the garden, and bought my book, Conversations With the Muse, hoping to take it back home with her and find others who would summon the creative Muse with her.

At one point there was a steady stream of people coming in the door, until they were shoulder to shoulder, and I was suddenly breathless.  I asked if they had come on a bus together.  One of them explained that they were an extended family, enjoying their annual reunion by driving a caravan of cars to ARTrails studios!

Then there was the couple who stood a long time gazing at my painting "Because the World Needs Angels", and finally decided to buy a print of it for their home.  But when they spoke to me of their wishes, a torrent of feeling was released that left both them and myself in tears.  The painting was part of the healing they needed following a year of intense family loss. There's something about this painting. . .a kind of reassurance that even when our loved ones cross over, their spirit will still be accessible to us. 

Of course it's always interesting to see who buys the art.  A little girl in pink is the proud owner of "Jester Bird", a pink painting from the Party Chick series, which her mother bought for her.  And an older couple bought "Entwined" on a layaway plan because it illustrated the creative source for them. A pregnant woman picked my "Mother Hen" painting from the bin, and her mother bought it for her. It's a very gentle, serene image of a hen and chicks, not my typical cocky rooster or jazzy party chick painting.

And then there was the lady who had brought her friend and stayed for a while, looking through my books and visiting and planning to come paint with me.  The following day she showed up again bearing a gratitude gift bag of sweet cherry tomatoes and succulent raspberries from her garden, sprinkled with flower blossoms and chocolates.  It was just what I needed to sustain me for the last few hours of the open studio.

On the last day, in the final two hours of open studios a cool wind blew up heralding our first real rain of the season, which left a glistening freshness to everything by the next morning.  I was left with a feeling of sweet serendipity about this open studio and  gratitude for the way that viewers give my art new life again and again.  Thanks to those of you who are among them.