Leanne Shawler, Artist

I had to take a little break from painting portraits. Don't worry, I have already started the next one, which will officially be two, actually, I think. But I took the Art Snacks challenge for May and combined it with an idea that came to me while listening to the Pug Party Podcast. Roxanne and James of the Pug Party Podcast were talking about how much better stale Peeps are from fresh ones in their 35th episode aptly titled "Stale Peeps".  The conversation about this occurs toward the end, from memory, but the podcast as a whole is well worth a listen. This is what Peeps are, for those who aren't familiar with them: (I am not sure if that is Peep poop in the left hand corner.) They are highly artificial marshmallows dusted in a ton of sugar and come in the shape of bunnies and chicks. To test the hypothesis of whether stale peeps are indeed better, I followed the instructions given by James in the podcast: cut a slit in the packaging, put in the cupboard ...

I started this portrait while at the ArtSnacks pop up art party in Los Angeles in March, using a circle of rough, handmade watercolor paper, and the few materials we had to hand. I glued it in with heavy matte gel and let it dry. I thought to loosen up, I would use a method I learned during LifeBook 2016 from Effy Wild and Tamara Laporte . It's using various prompts drawn at random. The first prompt was very simple. Use a smudgeable pencil. After several prompts, I had a background. I worked on the face also in watercolor and acrylic leftover the previous two paintings. And then it got really ugly as I persisted in using what was left on my watercolor palette. But this is where it really gets cool -- and I totally abandoned the prompts idea. I didn't like the ridge of where the thick watercolor paper met the journal page, so I used light molding paste through a stencil. Unfortunately, I used the stencil backward before I realized it, so I might end u...