A wonderful win, this bouquet. I started with a palette knife and gesso. Added texture, and scratch marks. Moved on to the next layers, still with knife in hand. Paint, pen, oil pastel, Q-tips, stylus.
My vase is clearly wonky. And I am missing a stem. But I am feeling, happy with this one. I rarely choose to use a palette knife. And without thinking? Never. But I reached, and grabbed, and started to messily layer paint.
Some of my fear is still nagging me. The “I can’t paint a chicken in a nest,” fear. That is what has been whispering in my head since May. Truthfully, since last year.
A request from a friend. She loves the first Rooster I painted for her. So WHY is there still so much fear?!
The little 4 x 4’s got me started. They lead me to the next, which was a gift of surprise and triumph.
And that led me to, begin.
When you learn to give yourself a break, and feel okay about not being able to live up to impossible standards, then you can begin to get the worry-free rest your mind and body so badly need. Suman Rai
God has promised that He will provide rest to those who have faith in Him so hold on to your faith, and to His words, for God’s words are true. Innah Delos Angeles
Wishing you JOY, great health, and restful nights.
Cha-cha-changes. Haha. Many in this piece. The twigs had green leaves, that disappeared against the background. I outlined them, still no good. So I painted them the same dark as the branch. Much better. The green balls have turquoise spots that show up much better in person. The fact that the image is saved for web, low-res, makes it harder to see them. The greens did not want to work. I added crayon marks to the leaves, they highlighted the stripe texture. Maybe if I add another layer of that, get those leaves darker, or brighter. Hmm.
I used orange crayon for the swirls, it wasn’t as dark as I had hoped. I used a peachy-pink paint pen, and that looks great in person as well. Here, not so much. I outlined some of the spots on the vase, then decided to darken some of the spots. While doing that, my Posca burped all over the bottom of tha vase. HUGE black yuck. LOL. I mopped it up with a paper towel, and there was so much paint, I stamped it on the vase as a repair. I desaturated the image in Photoshop, and the details pop, as you can see below.
On day three I worked too far ahead of myself. After laying down the loose lacey shapes, I planned to place some leaves, and secondary flowers. Oops! Haha. I went straight to the main attraction. There is a warm white pattern on the background. I wanted subtle, well. It’s almost invisible.
Day 3 texture close-up
When I thought I was done, something just didn’t feel right. I thought the bouquet was already messy, and adding splatter would junk it up. I looked. Looked some more. Hmm.
Then I showed it to Christine Brooks. Voila! She kindly suggested that maybe I needed a table. DUH! Then she suggested it be green. I wasn’t sure about the green. After my day 2 green flubs. But I went with it. I think I like that green tablecloth best in this piece. Thanks Christine! You saved my bee-hind!
I had planned to stop this series at 3. Well. Maybe one more. After cutting a wonky vase, (the top is angled too), I had petal shaped scrapes. Ah-ha! I have really been flying by the set of my pants with all of these. Just making it up as I go. I really should do some preliminaries.
The stamped flowers were done in yellow. I added a bit of green to the white blooms, an attempt at depth. Oh, and the white was applied with a bunch of Q-tips banded together. That was fun. I added splatter at the end. Yellow. Using up the paint in my palette. Well that was a yucky mistake. DUH, yellow and blue make green. Yeah.
Photoshop to the rescue again. I changed the yellow to a whitish-yellowish pale. Not great. But better. I selected only the background areas, so the yellow splatters remain on the vase and blooms. And yes, I went a bit too heavy. FIrst too light, and then. Bam. Too much.
I used saran wrap to get the texture on the background. So fun. I used my heat gun to quicken the drying. That may be why there is a sandy texture on the piece. Or maybe that happens , or maybe it is the paint. No matter. I think it is great. I’ll see if I can manage to do it again.
Day 4 texture close-up
Wow… even Gauguin!
What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art? Paul Gauguin
A load of laundry. A load of pillows. Dusted. Vacuumed. Did dishes. Finished organizing art supplies. Sampled paint colors. Eliminated some choices and grouped by value. Painted a palette grouping the values. Did a mani/pedi.
You know what this was. Procrastination. Haha. Late last night I finally started painting. DUH. If I had done the first part in the afternoon, I might have finished in time.
The first layer is a napkin from Ikea. I thought I had separated the layers, but after I Placed it, I noticed there was one more layer. So instead of dark outlines, I had soft ones. I used matte medium top and bottom, so that took a long time to dry.
This morning, I cut the vase out of scrapbook paper, glued that on, and sat staring with no clue what to do next. Haha.
I didn’t have a vision or a plan. I was inspired by some playful florals I found on Pinterest, and Instagram. And I feel like I missed the mark. That is exactly what this needs. A few bold marks. So. A work in progress.
I think I need to add some bright marks, and I need to brighten the leaves. I used stamps, ink, acrylics, posco pen and watercolor.
The background was originally a pale turquoise. It seemed too light, the vase was not standing out. So I laid a wash of Inktense over it, and dabbed it off. I left it slightly darker around the edge of the vase. The splatters turned out much large than I wanted. The blooms are so dark, adding the light might not be such a bad thing.
