MIXED MEDIA FROM CUT LETTUCE STEMS

I was preparing some salad today and cut the bottoms off the Romaine lettuce. I’ve noticed before how attractive these cut bits are, looking a bit like stars. I took some photos and fiddled about with the colour and contrast a bit in my photo editor.

Some digital manipulation

I decided to have some fun with these.

This is the larger one.

I posterised it (to 5 colours).

The small one.

Posterised.

I created several layers using both images, resizing and rotating them, adding some drop shadows and darkening the lower layers, and ended up with a multi-layered flower.

I think I can definitely use this!

Printing with the cut lettuce stems

I didn’t photograph every stage. I did this on a couple of scrap pieces of watercolour paper.

I took the two cut stems and proceeded to print with them, beginning with black acrylic paint with the larger one. Then I printed with Picket Fence Distress Ink with the smaller one but this really didn’t show up very well.

I sprayed the samples with Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide Sprays and spritzed it lightly with water, and dried it with my heat tool. The oxidation was pretty cool!

To add some highlights, I printed with white acrylic paint, using the small one, and finally, when everything was dry, I spattered it with both white and black.