Step by step painting

As I mentioned in my last post, I bought a 30 x 40 canvas and frame and wanted to paint something to add some color and decoration to our bedroom. We are going for a kind of modern arabic theme (we like the geometry and the textures of Moroccan design, just not the gaudy golds and purples). To give you an idea, this is what Juliana wants.

I really like it too, but I could use a little more color and I'm not in love with the thin red line. Really the only thing that remotely makes this modern arabic is the mosaic mirror on the wall. Anyhow, keeping mosaics in mind, I thought it would be nice to have a mosaic for our room, but with a bit of my own fling to it. Here is the process documented for you.

Step 1: make LOTS of lines on the canvas and see how they connect for you. Add some overlapping circles, diamonds or whatever and see what comes out of it. This is what I got. You can click on it to see it larger.

Step 1: the stetch

 Step 2: I was super nervous about color choices, so I made 3 smaller sketches and dabbled with difference colors, overlaps, designs, etc. to see what I likes and what I didn't. And more importantly what Jules likes and she didn't. I lean toward the warm deserty colors and we needed to match a bit with what we have in our room already. You can see our decorating start here.

Step 2: the color swatches

 Step 3: It wasn't without much hesistation that I added come color to the canvas (canvas isn't cheap and ending up with something I didn't like wasn't in the cards).

Step 3: adding color

Step 4: Just one layer of color started to look really flat, so I did some detail work to give more depth. The part I struggled the most with was the background. Juliana wanted it to look like old stucco, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to make oil paint look like old stucco. I dabbed with a paper towel trying to give texture and ended up with a blue sky straight out of a romantic landscape. Nice, but not for this piece. I wanted to add some "grunge" to it with a little brown and gray and after 4 days and probably 20 + hours I ended up with this.

Step 4: hanging the final product

All in all I like the way it turned out. As with all my projects, it wasn't the way I imagined it when I started. It kind of took on its own life as I went along. There are some things that I am still not thrilled about, but I think all artists find things wrong with their work. It gave me some confidence to continue practicing with oils (as I have the cash, tubes of oil paint are WAY expensive), and though they are very different than watercolors and it takes a whole different approach to painting...

 I.had.fun.