The Play's The Thing

I have had a ball playing with paint the past couple of days. I had it in my head that I wanted to make some heart paintings and maybe make some of them into Valentines for special someones in my life, but I also had two special girlfriends with birthdays who I thought needed a heart painting. In no way was this supposed to be "important" like the thought of a gallery painting engenders, and because of the play aspect of it, I was able to have fun and learn quite a bit about paints at the same time. If I didn't like the compliments I was trying to put together, I could scrape it off. No harm done. In fact, the many layers from some good and bad decisions gave each piece more depth. I know that for a fact, because I was tempted to stop with the second layer on the second group of hearts I was working on; they looked fine with their underpainting of gold acrylic and purple acrylic. But, if I'd stopped, it would have meant that I was giving up on the idea of play and giving in to the idea of playing it safe. And when I stopped thinking of them in the Hallmark card genre, and started mixing the paints around, I think they turned out a hellova lot better for the play. Each one is 6x8 canvas. I bought a little sampler tablet of different canvases, 2 of each kind. Some are linen, some are cotton duck and all fascinating to work with. I learned that linen is really too smooth to use a palette knife with in the manner I'm used to. The paint just slides away with no resistance from the weave. My two most favorite I will give to my daughter and husband as Valentine cards and then ask them if I can mount them on boards to hang. That will be an interesting activity to learn about. What glues and what woods or other hard surface to mount them? This play has become quite the learning experience! Happy Valentine's Day!!!