. . . texturized using plaster

and an idea I got from Martha Marshall about using mattboard squeegees. Love how it turned out, although the picture here isn't as good as the real thing in person. I am always on the lookout for new texturizing tools. I was in a convenience store the other day and there were cardboard sleeves sitting on the counter to be used with cups of hot coffee. I asked the young lady there if I could take one, and she told me to take as many as I wanted, after I explained that I was an artist and wanted to use them for painting. (I took only three.) She asked me to bring the painting in to show her how I used the sleeves, which I promised to do. I opened and unfolded the sleeves and there were parallelogram-shaped pieces of cardboard with holes. I used one of these shapes three times in the above picture, although only two places are evident in this shot, one at the top left and one in the middle near the bottom. I laid down the piece of cardboard and smeared plaster on top, then lifted up the carboard piece and left raised circles. Other coffee sleeves have a fine corrugated cardboard piece on the inside. I plan to use the cardboard itself, with the dried remains of the smeared plaster on it, in a collage. I am back to using the venitian plaster instead of the molding paste -- it's way cheaper and I just like it better. I've learned to apply it very thinly -- the squeegee helps a lot -- and built up the texture in layers so that it won't crack. Then I scribbled with various tools, pressed in some cheesecloth and screening material, stamped with homemade stamps, before painting, again with the squeegees.

Just two more things:

(1) I heard this weekend that I had sold another three paintings and "the check is in the mail."

(2) My team, the KU Jayhawks, is in the national championship basketball game tonight. As my brother's t-shirt says, "Fear the Bird."