This commissioned piece required some research on my part. The client wanted a piece for her mother who was a Reiki master/teacher and an Akashic Records reader, which I had never heard of, so I started looking into it. It focuses on positive and healing energy and seemed very uplifting. She specifically mention the High Priestess tarot card as one that resonated with her mother, and I found a phrase that resonated with me, that I wanted to be the overall theme of the piece: “Remember the unlimited possibilities you hold within yourself”
I thought it would be a nice little sneak peek to show you guys a glimpse into some of my sketchbook notes while doing research for this piece.
I felt this phrase was so important that I decided it should be the start of the piece. I wrote it across the entire surface of the board as sort of the hidden or subtle message of the piece. I knew it would probably end up getting covered up but I would know that it was there.
I found this image online and had just recently learned how to do image transfers so I decided I should incorporate it into the piece. Along with some other important symbols not only in Reiki but that were mentioned specifically by my client. These are shown in the image below.
As you can see I ended up using some fluid acrylics to put a base coat of color on the board. I purposely thinned it out so that you could still read my initial message through the paint. I wanted to stick with colors that seemed sort of ethereal or dreamy. The photo above shows me playing with different placements of the soon to be image transfers. I haven’t actually transferred them yet so I can move them around and decide what is the most pleasing composition.
Before I actually adhered the image transfers on the piece I knew the background needed more than one thin layer of acrylic paint. I was struggling to decide what I wanted to add to it and found myself staring at one of my single use paper palettes and this crazy thought popped into my head. What if I use my palette in my painting!?!? So that is exactly what I did and it was so beautiful! Even though in the beginning of this post I said that it didn’t matter whether my initial message ended up getting covered up, I realized once it was covered that I still wanted it to be part of the painting; so I rewrote it at the top of my little palette collage.
At this point I have created the image transfers, you can tell because the area around the actual image is transparent as opposed to white like in the photo above. The images are glued down and I have also added some fresh layers of paint to try to make the image transfers blend in a bit more with the background. One of the biggest issues I have found with using image transfers is that they tend to stand out unless you can find a way to camouflage them into the background, the High Priestess transfer is still a work in progress. I made this piece quite a while back but I vaguely remember cutting very close to the image itself in all of the transfers except the High Priestess which might explain why that one seems to stick out more than the others. Another fun fact is I did end up using the angel wings in the painting; just to the right of the High Priestess. It wasn’t an 100% successful transfer and there is a lot of dark around it so it doesn’t really stand out.
As I mentioned above I decided I needed that message to be the driving message that needed to be repeated throughout the painting, so I repeated it… again. This time, on top of the central image of the piece. Because we should always “remember the the unlimited possibilities you hold within yourself”
Once I felt content with the blending of the image transfers I felt that the finishing touch was to top it off with some gold leaf and I think it really finished off the piece with a bang.