I'm really trying to start churning out work now...mmm we'll see how that goes! I'm going to try to work on something new each week. When I think about it, it seems like it might be hard, but I think that it's doable as long as I can stay focused. The "staying focused" part is going to be tough, I'm not gonna lie, because I don't want to sacrifice socializing too much. But shit, if it comes down to it...I just gotta do what I gotta do.Anyway, the painting above is the latest piece I finished. I used black gesso to paint over an old, ugly painting that I did some time ago. I didn't sand in-between coats like I normally would when adding gesso to a surface, but next time I might try it to see if it makes a difference. I just added one coat painting horizontally, then the second coat I painted vertically. I ended up with a really solid, matte black as the foundation:
Once I was ready to start, instead of doing an underpainting like I normally would, I just used regular white chalk to draw an outline:
Next time I might try to use a white pencil or something thin like that, which might make it easier to create lines, but we'll see. I have a lot of school chalk left to use, I feel a little bit locked into it (and maybe I'm just a little lazy).Once the outline was to my liking, I just dove in with color. I loosely painted some colors for the background, then started in with adding colors and values for the flowers:
Then I just kept at it until I thought that it was done. I really liked starting with the black background because it seems to make the colors much richer. These jeweltones seem to really be the star against the black ground. It does get to be a little tricky when using darker shades of color, but I don't mind improvising or simply using exposed parts of the black canvas as the darkest values. With this process, I like that I don't have to commit to covering up the whole canvas. I think that it has the potential add some visual interest to a painting this way. Plus it's just one less thing to think about.I've always been attracted to using flowers in my work. However, I feel like I'm still tweaking and getting used to painting in this loose style, and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to translate to painting flowers. That being said, I'd say that I'm very much pleased with this attempt. I think that I'm going to keep this in mind moving forward and try to paint more of these.