A Letter a Week (ALaW) 25

Edging closer to the end of the first alphabet!  Here is Y after many attempts and re-attempts.  Sometimes it just seems to be that you work and work and work an idea and it goes absolutely nowhere.  I wanted to see what it was like painting on gesso, on timber. I applied gesso to a piece of red cedar quite thickly, and waited for it to dry. And waited.

I then wrote a Y on it and it looked ghastly, so I had to re-apply the gesso and wait. Again.

I wrote another Y and thought - let's paint it with acrylic. OK but pretty dull. So I thought, does watercolour go over gesso? I washed some watercolour over the letter and background hoping it might make it more interesting. It didn't. Then I put copper gouache over the whole lot thinking I might 'pull' the letter out of the wet gouache. The phone rang and the gouache dried. Having hidden my letter completely I now began to panic - I had a square of copper looking wood.

I applied some gold leaf in random bits and then wrote over it ink. Not a bad outcome after all the detours. I must admit - ink keeps winning out over paint...

I must admit my lettering is suffering with this broken finger - I have to keep it straight and out of the way and it just leaves me with so little control. My handwriting is atrocious at the moment!