Project Life: Travel - Florence's Fountain of Neptune and Piazza della Signoria

Despite the fact that Florence has throngs of people and covered with a perpetual gritty dirt … it's by far  one of the few cities in Europe that I am enamored with - love is hard to explain … so we shall not dwell into it.

{Tips + Technique: "heart" painted with Golden Fluid Acrylic on gloss finished photo} 

{Tips + Technique: Photos on the Florence 'cover page' done in a mosaic style with subtle colours}

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Florence's Fountain of Neptune and Piazza della Signoria 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

I'm going to focus on the techniques being used on the lower half of the left hand spread of this Project Life capturing the Fountain of Neptune and a statue from the Piazza della Signoria - that's all I'm saying for now {smirk}.

The fact is Florence's Fountain of Neptune is often not given a thought or two when one is standing in the middle of Piazza della Signoria. This is easy to understand why when the L-shape square is dominated by the city hall - the Palazzo Vecchio with a copy of Michelangelo's David at the entrance way - skimmed by one wing of the Uffizi Gallery and tantalized by so many famous Florentine artists' statues at the Loggia dei Lanzi. 

Factor in the many tired tourists sitting around the base of the Fountain of Neptune obscuring one's view … well, it's really just another feature with statues when you're spoilt with choices!

I have to admit I neither have all that many photos of the Fountain of Neptune nor any real impressionably fond memories of it, but decided to include it in my Florence Project Life spread so that I could experiment creating sprays of water droplets and spills!

tips + techniques

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

texture ("water droplets and spills")

 It's seriously easy to achieve water with Golden Glass Bead Gel.

The Golden Glass Bead Gel is basically a "paint without pigment (colour)" that has real glass beads in them that gives it the reflective qualities (like a mirror) when dry since the "paint without colour" dries to colourless (transparent) when dry.

So for the photo above, all I did was apply about a RM0.05 coin size on my palette knife and spread it over parts of the photo in which I want to create water splashes.

Drawing inspiration from the water marks left on the statue of Neptune, I experimented by adding iridescent pigment - Golden Iridescent Pearl (Coarse or Fine works the same) - for an interesting shimmering quality.

The "accident" in the photo below - the yellow-ish colours - is colours lifted from the unwashed stencil that I had earlier used with alcohol ink - giving the glass bead/ water effect different tonality and intensity.

Top Left Anti-Clockwise: (a) photos lined-up as per the Project Life pockets, Golden Glass Bead Gel, any sized palate knife, stencil (free hand would do the trick as well), (b) use a small scope of the Glass Bead Gell, (c) spread it over the stencil as evenly as possible, (d) lift the stencil and let the Glass Bead Gel dry to transparent 

balance

For this Project Life spread the unifying themes were:

yellow-intense bronze orange colours 

created with Project Life cards, alcohol inks (because my photos are gloss finish and hence non-porous and would work best with permanent, acrylic based inks and alcohol ink),

mess like grunge on edges of some photos 

created with Christy Tomlinson designed Unity stamps stamp

script writing

own collection

ignoring photo boundaries

e.g. "water spill" effect created from Neptune to the statue below … likewise with the application of alcohol ink

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'll talk about alcohol inks in the next review of my Project Life: Travel.

And also my current favourite "metal" that's in the form of a Fluid Acrylics - Micaceous Iron Oxide

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For a professional techniques lesson on mixed media and how you can apply those techniques learned into your choice art work and personal style,  join mixed media artist Nathalie Kalbach at Scrap-n-Crop.com's annualCELEB ART RETREAT happening this 22nd and 23rd March 2014.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Project photos are copyright Scrap-n-Crop.com
If you are reblog-ing, kindly link to this blog and assign credits - thanks!