Spring Has Sprung

Thursday's theme over at One Powerful Hour is Spring. It's about time! I can't speak for everyone in New England but to me this past winter was incredibly l o n g. We're all jumping for joy here in Maine. With that said I decided to be different and go with the literal meaning of the word spring rather than the season Spring. The total time I spent on this ATC was an hour, or less, including the mistake I made! However that's not taking into consideration drying time. First I did the standard quick gesso background: a couple of coats making sure the brush strokes went every which way and then a oouple of green and then blue acrylic washes wiped over with a baby wipe. You know the drill. When that dried I lettered "Spring" with a calligraphy marker. Then I glued down the spring with a glop of gel medium. The parts didn't seem to make the whole so I put in the comic book style action lines to pull it together. Because of the gel the whole thing had to dry for hours.

Remember I said I made a mistake? At first I wanted to do just a plain white gesso background and the calligraphy right on top of that for that minimalist look. Add the spring. Done. Post it on the blog. Well I thought I lettered "Spring". I took a second look and it was really "Sprig". Stupid. So I slapped on more gesso. I let that dry but I could still see a shadow of "Sprig" so then I did the washes of color. Overall it probably came out better than it would of with my original idea.