Experimenting (or "The Way That I Work")

I don't know about you, but when I begin playing around with different products or techniques I tend to get lose track of time.
I forget about doing things that I was supposed to do (like laundry, dishes, dinner, showering) (eew).
It's me and my studio.
Oh, and the mess that is in that studio.

I have been working on the bird mobiles and took a break to go to an Icon exhibit at a local art gallery.
The paintings are just wonderful.
Time worn panels of wood  that were showing their age.
Limited palettes that said so much.
My original thought was to sketch while I was in there...but I couldn't when I got there
(this is going to sound crazy) but I almost felt that it would be a sacrilege to do that.
I know, I know.
But the very air within that exhibit was laden with a sense of holiness.
Did you know that the early creators of these Icons did not even sign their names? They felt that this would detract from the subject of the painting.
It was about the Icon...not the painter.

I was so inspired by the backgrounds in these painting (some from the 14th century!).
While I didn't want to start painting this type of subject, the look of the background (esp. the edges of the panels) fascinated me.
As soon as I had a minute (and when I could no longer stand to wait), I pulled out a few pieces of fabric and paper to do some experimenting.
I had one piece from a previous experiment that I really liked. So I grabbed all of the materials I used on that sample to start another one.
And it went on like this for a few days.
I taped small pieces of paper or fabric to my work table and layered paint/crackle paste/glazes in different order to see what type of results I got.
Here's some of my experiments (all samples, not "beautiful" per se but excellent learning vehicles).

Perfect creepy crackles for that, um, creepy thing.

One of my favorite experiments!
Crackled birds!
You had to know that was coming...

Two different crackle mediums with soft gel over the top of them.
You can see the huge crackles under the gel on the left.

Many, many layers of stuff.

The blue around the edges is painters tape.
Gotta hold your fabric/paper down or the crackling
will distort it.

Big, baked earth crackles

Tiny dino skin crackles

Thin layers over collage

More mad scientist experiments 

Love the bird with collage material underneath

Next, I'll add some color to that baby!