A Vision From Spring

The weather can have a HUGE impact on your day in the studio. Last spring/summer, I got a bee 🐝 in my bonnet about trying something new. I share updates with Beyond the Brushes members as I work through the painting process, and now, I'm sharing them with you. 🤗

Another ugly baby laid out 😂

I have a vision. Outside my comfort zone. Bigger than I usually work for experiments (30” canvas 😳).

Go big or go home. 🤷‍♀️

Hang on to your hats. This will be really good, or I’ll have to burn it 😂

Williamsburg oil + turps on Belgian linen mounted on Masonite

Day 2:

Now, do y'all see why I say, "don't fear the ugly stage"??? You can't avoid it on canvas 😂

Day 2 - part 2

This is a good example of why walking away from a painting is a good idea. This is one way that oil actually helps -- you have no choice but to walk away between stages. This lets your eyes rest, and you can see things that might be done better.

This is a BIG disadvantage in digital because you can complete a piece in one setting. Take a lesson from oils here!

I keep these oil pencils around to mark corrections on paintings...

I've been out of the studio for about 4 hours. I walked back in with fresh eyes and -- BAM! The camera left upper arm is too straight and the entire arm overall is too short 🤦‍♀️

Pushing the elbow out should solve both issues as well as define the waistline a bit more. I also took the "corner" off the hand on the camera's right arm...

I also drew in some eyeballs because... 😂 This one is going abstract so they'll be covered, but I did it anyway.

Even with an abstract, I want the limbs relatively the correct length and in the most visually pleasing positions!

Day 3

Colton is off today, and he popped in unannounced about the time I took a palette knife to this painting. He said, "Mom, it looks like you're destroying that!" 😂😂

Kinda, son. Kinda. But, it has to be if I'm gonna get an abstract out of it!

It's day 3 and a few hours after my day 3 update. Guess what I see? The camera's right arm, which I thought would have foreshortening working in my favor, has turned to more of a side angle because I changed the orientation of the hand. I like the hand better but now there's a stubby arm. Back to the studio to scrape off some paint 😂

Paint scraped, and arm slightly repositioned. Better... ish 🤷‍♀️. I also reduced the size of her melon head 😂

Day 4

I couldn't paint yesterday because everything was still too wet. Thanks, Hurricane Elsa!

Today it was time to get brave and brayer. Ahhhhh! 😱

I rolled on some stronger blue on the upper right and the lighter blue over the green and the pedestal

The texture 🥰

I stood back and looked at it. The texture around the head was fantastic. The upper corners were flat and boring. Soooooo....

I took a palette knife and scraped the paint off back to the canvas. Yikes 😳😂

Time will tell if that was the right choice or not. 🤷‍♀️

Day 5

Time to go big or go home 😬

I'm telling myself over and over "color theory still works" 😳

These are some scary moves right here. But I have this vision of transparent greens with a bit of this color peeking through. If I don't go bright enough, it'll just disappear altogether.

Absolutely terrifying... and something I've never really tried before 😱

Day 6

Color theory is indeed still alive and well 🙌😂

That "peeking through" in the skirt especially is exactly what I was after 🥰

Next time, I have to work the purple out of the skin. If you're at the end of apprentice, this is a great example of all colors being relative. I did NOTHING to the skin, and it went from peachy-toned in the last version to purple in this one. 😂😂😂

Day 7

I did some quick glazing last night to get the purple out of the skin, so I guess technically this would be day 6 1/2. I brought back facial features that I have absolutely no intentions of keeping 😂

I still think it's going to take a couple more paint days to get this to where I want it. That pesky vision in my head and all 😑

I had wayyyyy too much fun "twirling" my brush with some pink on the lower section of the skirt. Between the bright colors under the paint and the fun brushstrokes on top of the paint, I'm like 🙌😁

Day 8

I flipped the canvas upside down and broke all the edges that were screaming at me. I also did more broken brushwork along the bottom edge of the skirt. Additionally, I took a sanding block and removed some of the color from the bare canvas in the lower right. (Yes, that's weird, but it totally works!)