2015 Christmas Artwork Bethlehem Stars and Some Small Paintings

Here are the finished Bethlehem Stars for this year - purple and blue are Alianora's colors, in case you're wondering about it. As it is Alianora's Character who is Keeper of the Faith through the generations, it's particularly fitting.

This collection of twelve is done specifically for my sister's shop in our own Small Town USA.

In addition, I'll add several small paintings that our people have liked the bigger versions of - textured black base with the texture highlighted in metallic tones. They're 'under construction' at the moment.

Here's where they're at now.

This last one has the ingredients for my latest experiment - flour, corn starch, glue, water - for the texturing. For my earlier pieces I used plaster of paris. The glue was supposed to minimize the cracking and such (unless I want that look, which sometimes I do) of the plaster. The jury is still out on that one. I put one of the pieces  done on a canvas panel on top of a heater - it bowed a little which cracked the gloop as it dried.

None of the others are showing signs of any such thing (yet) so I reckon it was heating the panel that was the culprit. Luckily for me, this one is essentially for the fun of it, just playing. And watch - it will be the first to go out the door in somebody's Christmas Shopping bag.

Here's a shot of the next step of the process:

Painted solid black. The paint's still wet; the reflection of the flash gives us a general idea of what the piece would look like if we used a silver metallic highlight - which we may or may not ... 

And that's enough for the time being. The other pieces won't be dry enough for their black coats until probably sometime tomorrow ... which is kind of a pain because I have shift-work for the next thee days ... doesn't leave much time nor inclination nor energy for creativity ... but they'll be ready by Saturday regardless ... ;) ...