… current studio progress.
4′ x 3′ Dahlia in Acrylic
It’s a little “light” due to the interference paints I’m playing with. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s about 2/3 done. I probably need at least another 8-12 hours on it.
A little closeup to experience the joy of shiny paint. (Giggle.)
Happy Friday, everyone!!!
For your Friday viewing pleasure…
Black gesso painted applied for the base. I’m usually rocking out with the headphones as I do this part.
3’x4′ canvas ready to go. The painting on the left is what it “could” be when it grows up.
Using a white pastel pencil and a scaled graph, I pencil in the lines from a photo reference.
My studio neighbor noticed that all of my dots were uniform in a previous painting. I thought I would play with small, med and large-sized brushes. I find it creates a lovely sense of movement with the dots, but is mostly noticeable between the large and small sizes.
I’m starting with a red since the roses are sort of orangey-yellow. My hope is the red will peep through nicely at the end.
I added some purple interference because I love purple sparkles and interference looks lovely on top of black. However, interference with liquid acrylic or perhaps dots (I’m not sure which), created foam in some places. Whoops!! The nice thing about acrylic is that I’ll be able to cover the sketchy spots. Admittedly, it takes more time when working with dots…
Back to some yellow for the roses themselves as well as getting in some of the highlights.
Going back to some medium tones. Sometimes it seems like you have to go back and forth a bit.
Again, more yellow for the roses, but adding some darker darks too for shaping and depth.
A close up of some really light highlights. It looks subtle here, but check it out on the middle rose below when you step back a foot or so…
Cool, huh? I just love the fact that distance and closeup viewing is so different, but just as engaging.
For my final steps I sponged out the initial white lines, leaving black lines in their wake. I then put a cool red glaze on some of the pieces of roses I wanted to push back visually for the sake of movement within the painting.
I’m not sure exactly how long it took to paint the whole thing, but I’m guessing somewhere around 40 hours.
Let me know if you have any questions about this painting. I’m happy to share.
Miss E helping me get set up into my studio. It’s a little rustic, but I’ll be making it more “mine” after getting a better feel for the space (and painting more pictures). I get such a charge out of going to the studio. It is most definitely my “happy place”.
Knowing that I haven’t done any serious painting in years, I’m allowing myself the opportunity to make many glorious mistakes.
The 16×20 canvas on the desk easel is what I’ve started with…
I didn’t really know where to begin for my 1st studio day, so I pulled out an old American Artist Magazine article highlighting a technique using black gessoed canvas, liquid acrylics and glazes.
I had bought all the supplies for it a while back and figured it was an easy project to start.
Step one was to outline with white pastel and block in the main shapes. I’m working from a black and white New Mexico sketch I dug out of my rusty portfolio.
This morning I put in some warm and cool transparent glazes. I’m thinking I might save a step like this for the last. Not sure it really made sense to put it in initially.
I ended today’s session putting in some bigger lights and darks. My painting skills feel terribly rusty, but I’m enjoying color intensities I’m getting.
Okay, it’s really called the Denim Dop bag and it’s in Brett Bara’s “Sewing in a Straight Line”. The instructions were very detailed and step by step. (This translates to “even a nube like me can do it”.) I am so in love with this book after having such a good experience with this project.
It’s super cute, but will likely be cuter once I let Miss E in on the fact she’s allowed to decorate it for me. (I’m giggling inside with anticipation.)
The bag was originally made with denim jeans, but the small pieces mean you could likely make it out of most anything that needs “upcycling”. I made mine from left over artist canvas.
craftyartiste 