Having actually completed the mixing materials into paint exercise first, I had a good idea of what to include in this exercise and chose to incorporate some of the materials i had already used into this piece too. When reading the brief of the exercise, I took the advice of collecting pva glue, gesso, cut up tights and brown paper. With the idea of Autumn as a suggestion in mind I also wanted to collect items with a natural finish and so gathered leaves, rice, salt and crushed peppercorns.
With all the items collected, I began with a layer of gesso to create a gritty base, and went on to gluing down the tights with the pva glue, and so on with the rice and pepper, and mixing salt into the gesso. Having built up a thin layer, I proceeded to adding more items, purely to give more texture in order to create a decent texture and surface for a natural and autumnal piece.
I have not yet completed the painting, but as shown below, the background has been built up with many areas of both smooth and rough texture that will work under acrylic to give a rustic and true natural base for an Autumn painting.
SOPHIE FAWCETT'S OCA LEARNING LOG 