Hardy Gallery Submission

I joined a few of the people in my class in a mosaic fundraiser project for the Hardy Gallery.  How it works is you sign up, they send you a 6" x 6" stretched canvas and you paint it and send it back to them.  All the canvases are displayed together as a large mosaic and raffled off as a fundraiser.

I sketched out my idea on a small notebook and then scanned it, enlarged it to fit my canvas and then sketched it on canvas.  After my sketch was finished I painted the background color and started with the hair, then worked on painting the face, starfish and kelp shawl.  I painted my line drawing of the scales and then went over it with a wash of color before doing a finishing touch on the fins.  This project is about 4 hours of work.

I really enjoyed this project.  I don't often paint my dreamed up sketches, lately I've been big on photo reference.  But with a canvas so small I think you can get away with invented details.  I hope whoever receives my painting enjoys it.  :)

Venice

Welcome to my art blog, sorry for the long pause in updates.  I began this painting before I became pregnant last year and it sat unfinished in our basement for quite a while!  :)  But after having our daughter I signed up for a painting class to cut out a few hours every other week to paint.

So the inspiration for this piece came from our trip photos.  I found this beautiful carved gold picture frame in a garage sale that set everything in motion, I ordered a canvas to fit the golden frame.  I had already narrowed down a few of my favorite photos from Italy but finally my husband and I decided on Venice.  So next I picked a composition that worked well in the frame size.

I began by getting the drawing down on canvas with pencil.  I printed a black and white version of my image to the size of the canvas.  Then I used scissors and cut out the silhouette of the buildings and important perspective lines.  I then free-handed the areas I didn't get with my cutting out method.  When I was finished and felt confident in my sketch I began to break into my paints. At first my method was wrong, I was trying to speedily paint the buildings in the distance all in one layer of paint.  I realized I was getting flat colors by attempting so much in one coat.  So I returned to my usual method that has a slower process.  I begin by tracing my sketch with paint so it didn't get lost.

  Then began with a wash of color as my 1st layer of paint.  Covering the last of the white canvas feels so good!  I also make calls on what I want to change about my photo at this stage.  I decided that I needed to tone down the heavy dark shadow being cast on the building. I wanted to use reference to brighten and restore the Venetian flag and add in the emerald green color that the water had in some pictures.  A lot of people in the class thought I was finished at this stage.  It's true, in the foreground it's more then a wash, more like a first coat but it didn't feel done.  

Previous experience has shown me in the second coat so much richness and vibrancy comes through in the 2nd layer of paint as you can see in the photo below.  I'm almost done with this second layer of paint.  I've adjusted my colors, and I'm getting close to finishing!  

My next photo should be the finished painting!  I'm just adding a few more details and then varnishing.

This has been one of the most challenging paintings I've worked on.  It required so much patience!  I haven't finished tallying the hours but my guess is over 80 hours of work!