Depending on my mood, sometimes I cart home a bag of rags I use in my studio and give them a washing with Oxiclean and they turn out just fine. Than on other occasions I have gotten so much gooked up paint on an old rag that I toss those nasty ones into the garbage....well not exactly. You see, in my studio the garbage might not get emptied in awhile and that is intentional. Because in the garbage may be some tossed out pieces of work that I might revive from the dead. Or as in the case of rags, I actually like what happens when I want to remove paint from a large painting I am working on and use a rag that is stiff and scratchy from layers of dried up paint. You get a lot of interesting swipes and marks when using a rag that has clumps and lumps of old paint on it.

Narrative in Mixed Media Abstract Art

November 28, 2015 by Dianne Zweig

Did you ever wonder how artists come up with the subject matter for their artwork? Which comes first a concept, a color scheme, a design or a story in your mind that yhou are trying to illustrate? For many Abstract Mixed Media artists, the work evolves and the "content" establishes itself later. In this piece shown, I was loosely thinking about "salad". So yes, I did indeed mix several colors of "green" paint and I did have an underlying concept going on in my brain. But for the majority of my work, the work dictates the narrative after the fact and each person who views the work, has their own intepretation of what they see.