Blue Tree is Born, or What I did at School Today

I took four pictures in the process of painting a tree on a small piece of slate. What is not in the photos is that first the slate had to be collected from the corner of our church graveyard, washed and have its edges sanded. Then, I printed on it in white acrylic paint with a small block I made out of fun foam and mat board. Printing in white first makes the colors show up against the slate, which swamps transparent pigments. I chose my favorite pair of complements, blue and orange, as the main colors for this particular tree.


I decided to have the light coming from the right, so I added the same blue with white added in various mixtures. I mixed my orange and did the same thing on the trunk. For some reason, all the decorations run down the front of the tree like buttons on a blazer.



I added red, warm and cool yellows and a spiral as a crown to my tree.




I added spirals as snowflakes made from a soft printmaking block I cut. The rest of the tree just got made more itself with shadows and highlights. It is now ready for two coats of acrylic sealer and a pin back.