This 12"x12" acrylic painting was started in July. Nearly five months later, it is finally finished! It is now available for purchase here on Etsy.
It took so long for two reasons: 1) I often put it on the back burner while I worked on other things, like editing my novel and working on colored pencil drawings. And 2) I built up more layers on this painting than I did on my previous acrylic paintings (the Cloud Atlas Sextet), working over the same areas again and again until I achieved the look I wanted.
First, I put down some gestural strokes, to figure out where the flowers were going to go. I built up the flowers, layer by layer, to make them (and the shadowy background) more dimensional. I added details to the flowers, outlining a few petals. I added white and black stripes in the background. Then, I put those black and yellow patterns over many of the flowers, weaving them in and out of space so that they appeared and disappeared throughout the flower field.
Finally, I added in some final details. I went over the yellow pattern one more time to conceal any darker paint underneath that was still visible under the first layer. I also added some orange back in to many of the petals, so that the painting wouldn't be quite so bright/"caution yellow."
I also added in a few splotches of paint (yellow dabs, and white dabs), just very subtly into the background, and finished it off with some lighter (almost white) highlights on a few petals.
Here is the final painting:
How yellow this painting appears depends on the light of the room. In a darker room, it does look more yellow (the yellow pattern and yellow flowers blend together more). But in a room with lots of natural light (like my dining room with the window curtains pulled open, as we see in the photos below), it is a little more neutral. The brownish/tan/orange shadows and background colors are more obvious, as our the white highlights on the petals.
The paint wraps around the side of the canvas, so that when it is hung on the wall the edges that are visible are not white.
Despite all the details and time that went into this, it's a fairly small painting. It's only 12"x12", which means it would easily fit in any room. Here's a photo of my hand next to the painting, for size comparison:
This painting is available for purchase here on Etsy.
It took so long for two reasons: 1) I often put it on the back burner while I worked on other things, like editing my novel and working on colored pencil drawings. And 2) I built up more layers on this painting than I did on my previous acrylic paintings (the Cloud Atlas Sextet), working over the same areas again and again until I achieved the look I wanted.
First, I put down some gestural strokes, to figure out where the flowers were going to go. I built up the flowers, layer by layer, to make them (and the shadowy background) more dimensional. I added details to the flowers, outlining a few petals. I added white and black stripes in the background. Then, I put those black and yellow patterns over many of the flowers, weaving them in and out of space so that they appeared and disappeared throughout the flower field.
Finally, I added in some final details. I went over the yellow pattern one more time to conceal any darker paint underneath that was still visible under the first layer. I also added some orange back in to many of the petals, so that the painting wouldn't be quite so bright/"caution yellow."
I also added in a few splotches of paint (yellow dabs, and white dabs), just very subtly into the background, and finished it off with some lighter (almost white) highlights on a few petals.
Here is the final painting:
How yellow this painting appears depends on the light of the room. In a darker room, it does look more yellow (the yellow pattern and yellow flowers blend together more). But in a room with lots of natural light (like my dining room with the window curtains pulled open, as we see in the photos below), it is a little more neutral. The brownish/tan/orange shadows and background colors are more obvious, as our the white highlights on the petals.
The paint wraps around the side of the canvas, so that when it is hung on the wall the edges that are visible are not white.
Despite all the details and time that went into this, it's a fairly small painting. It's only 12"x12", which means it would easily fit in any room. Here's a photo of my hand next to the painting, for size comparison:
This painting is available for purchase here on Etsy.
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