Combining my textural work with my other techniques using acrylic paint and soft pastel

I decided to combine the techniques that I have been using in my experimental sketchbooks, for example, the soak-stain technique, soft pastels and textural work to form mixed media compositions. I experimented doing this on board and am going to explain the process that I went through to get to the end result.

First of all, I prepared the board with emulsion paint in Wednesday's session so that I could work onto it on Friday. I then stuck down three pieces of newspaper to the background so it added more tone to the background. I arranged these pieces of newspaper in a way that would direct the marks that I would make with the paint in the next step.

After this, I poured watered-down acrylic onto the board, I did this so that the blue spanned across most of the bottom half and only used a limited amount of orange to capture a quick contrast against the blue.

I went onto adding masking tape over the top, laying it in a vertical fashion. This then leads the eye downwards towards the piece of greaseproof paper that I scrunched up before sticking it flat to the surface.

After this I made a blue chalk mark to emphasise the blue that is in the background and rubbed charcoal over the top of the masking tape and greaseproof paper so that it picked up their textures. Furthermore, I felt that the edges of the board looked bare so I added two orange marks with watered-down acrylic paint to the top left and bottom right corners. This almost frames the centre of the composition with a vivid contrast to the blue used.

Finally, I made the charcoal darker over the masking tape and greaseproof paper and also added two marks that followed the direction of the orange paint that I added before. This meant that the charcoal branched out towards the outskirts of the composition more.