Go Big or Go Home

So......... It's the absolute wrong time of the year in my life right now to try to do something different, out of the box, scary, time-sucking, but this is the time that I chose to try working on larger canvases for my paintings.  My forum turned out to be an online class called "FUNKY LITTLE CITYSCAPES" by Jodi Ohl.  Jodi embraces a whimsical style in the same vein as my own so when I saw this class advertised, I knew it was meant to be.  I think everyone in the class is having a fantastic time.  Some are even on their second or third paintings and it's only been a little over a week that the class has been in session.  That's a testament to a good class.  I took a few pictures along the way to show you some of the different layers that went into this painting.  I won't do an in-depth tutorial, but  will post the pictures so you can get an idea how much underpainting went into it to get the visual texture in the finished painting.  My inspiration was Italy and the cities that are built into the mountainsides so I chose a Tuscan palette and stuck fairly to it. We were given the option to spot underpaint our canvases so I chose to do black before I added some "noise" with crayon.

I then chose my palette, portrait composition, and painted the background with a combination of palette knife and credit card. Some white paint was added to create some interest throughout the background. I chose some of my favorite Stencil Girl stencils to help with that interest.

The next layers included sketching out the house arrangement and layering on several layers of color.

More layers of paint were added before the detailing begins, first with paint on the houses, and then with India Ink and nibs.

The final touches included some shadowing, gold metallic and black noise,  and  detailing with white Krylon Paint Pen.

"Tuscan Interlude" 12" x 30"

Bloom

I am still knee-deep in puppydom and paper towels.  Angus is growing like a weed and needs to be attended constantly, but I am happy to say, we are making progress with him.  I had a few minutes the other day to take out this painting from a few years ago and play with the center with some Golden Fluid Acrylics.  I love how they work so well with other watermedia even years later.  In this piece, I decided I wanted the center of the flower to be stronger so I went back and matched the watercolors with some acrylic and added layers to it.  I think it adds something to the painting.

The few spare minutes I have now go to Stampaway class prep.  If you haven't looked at the Tattered and Torn samples, look them up on the Stampaway site.  I rescheduled my Snippets Studio Cloth class at Simply Said for the Saturday of Stampaway weekend.  Please join me there and learn how to useacrylics and grounds on Studio Cloth.  It will open up a world of possibilities in your art, homedecorating, and more importantly at this time of year, gift giving.

I'll leave you with those thoughts and new Angus pics at 11 weeks.  He's going to be a big boy.