Days in the Life of This Girl

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Wet Paint

I haven't painted anything in likely 10 years. Last year, perhaps exactly a year ago or so when my creative self came back to me, I purchased some canvases, an assortment of brushes, and a basic set of acrylic paints. All of this has sat collecting dust waiting for me to be inspired to paint (and to have time enough to relax and do so). If you've been following this blog, you know I recieved an inspiration to create for Easter a work of art in paint. I have been sketching and thinking and laying it out in my head. And today, I spent the day with the door open (letting in the spring breeze), music playing throughout the house, sitting in the sunshine painting (that is after I biked down to the art materials store, picked out a canvas, one more tube of paint and a couple brushes). The nice thing about acrylics are that they dry quickly, so I have completed my piece in just one day's time. Below is my documented progress (you didn't think I'd spend all day being creative and painting for the first time in forever and not photograph it did you?)

Stage 1: Sketched out the heart with pencil and filled in with color

Also added some streaks of main heart color to outer canvas and darkened the base.

My makeshift palatte, made from a 49 cent plate from Goodwill.

Stage 2: Lettering sketched in and covered in a color wash.

I used pencil to outline my lettering and mixed paint with water for the transparent wash. This will give color behind the letters once the background is complete, but not obscure them with too much color. I also found the perfect font, it's called "bell bottoms".

Of course, self portrait of myself doing detail painting of the lettering.

Stage 3: Lettering completed with mixed colors and a steady hand.

Stage 4: Applied more color wash and thick paint to complete background.

Stage 5: Ta da! A masterpiece.

posted by Jen @ 8:40 PM

2 Comments:

At 5:40 PM, Empty Voice said…

holy toledo!

Jen, You are absolutely amazing!

Insanely talented!

and a wonderful person!

Thanks for sharing your art experience with us.
At 3:44 PM, Anonymous said…

it's not fair that one person gets to have so much talent.