Abstract with Foam Plates

My friends D and  S attend the Art Unraveled retreat every year in Phoenix in August.  they always come home with exciting projects to share.  One workshop they did not take (but a friend told them about) was Carol Nelson's Effortless Abstracts.  Check out her work HERE.  We each started with a small canvas board or cradled panel.  

I started with two 6"x6" panels.

We applied some texture paste to the edges.  Then (we all did things in random order) i took a foam plate and folded and tore it into shapes.  then glued it to my cradled panel with tacky glue.  then following K's suggestion, put a dab of paint in 4 different colours in each corner of the panel.  Then blended and swirled and played with the colours. 

 After it had dried somewhat, i added glazes, metalics, interference paints and even mica flecks to the panels to create more glow and interest.  

The next step is to use a paint pen, sharpie or in my case, payne's grey paint and a small brush to outline the shapes.

Here are the play date gals' works:

 K did one with bright primary colours on a thick canvas.

 K did this one on a small block with teal and copper.  

even without the black lines it looks cool!

 D went outside the box and created this canvas board with circles cut from the foam plates.

 S used three canvas boards and attached her foam plate sections with E6000 glue.  It started to sort of "eat into" the foam - but created a cool leather-like effect.

She is still working on blending her colours with glazes and texture gels.

Thanks S for sharing this fun technique with us!  And thanks too to Carol for being our inspiration!.