A friend at work brought me the end of a celery bunch with all the individual stalks cut away, and suggested I use it as a stamp with fingerpaint for my students at work. I had seen this just recently on a Quilting Arts episode - an artist used all kinds of fruits and vegetables as stamps in her quilts. They were beautiful! These pages were some that I had already started by glueing the words from a devotion. It needed texture and lots of color, so I used acrylic paint and stamped with the celery with no particular pattern in mind - just to see what it would do.
The yellow is acrylic paint mixed with Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish for a beautiful transparent glaze. I had never tried this and I couldn't believe how it made cadmium yellow light so completely transparent!
The page on the right was very plain and needed something. So I used oil pastels to draw the seagull, which I think truly illustrates freedom.
I realized after doing these pages that the shape of the stamp was very clearly a flower or rose. So next I stamped out these pages, which again already had the text in place.
I used the acrylic mixed with gloss medium and varnish again on this page. I love both the gloss and the transparency of this! The flowers are quinacridone magenta. I adore this color!
I stamped the left page at the same time, but didn't do anything else to it. I was really just using leftover color on the celery so as not to waste it. I did these in my office at lunch so I was running out of time. Later that night in my studio at home I finished the left side with watercolor. SO MUCH FUN!!
