Paint, said I

Well - here's an interesting way to get things done. Post a blog entry that says you are going to do something. Then you do it. Like 'cus if you don't you look lazy or like a liar or something.
So i said i might paint - and i did just that.
Here's how it turned out:
I started with a large gallery canvas - the kind that is about 2" deep and wrapped around the edges. I had previously "prepped" this canvas by applying a small tub of dry wall compound with a trowel to make a rough irregular surface. I planned to do something with it - about a year ago - it has been sitting under the stairs since then waiting.
As i said in yesterday's blog entry - i found a painting i liked in the Ballard Designs catalog. The artist is JB Hall. I tried to more or less copy it - but ended up a bit different.
I started by applying blobs of paint randomly to the canvas. Ochre, blue, green, and left some areas white. Because i couldn't find my white paint! I know i have some somewhere. Yeah - a normal person would keep all their paint together, i know.
Once i had the colour on the canvas, i started to create some areas of depth. i think i was remembering what i learned in Ann Baldwin's class at Asilomar. I wrote about it here.
It is important to not get too muddy when layering paint. This was hard - because i could only find one paint brush and i didn't feel like rinsing out my water class. As you can see i didn't bother looking for my easel. I just plopped the canvas up on an armchair on the deck - letting the top lean on the railing. I DID put down some newspapers in case Jim saw me painting without any protection at all. But i really hate prep - i just want the fun to start right away!
I added the spots with a cork. It didn't make perfect dots as i hoped - but they have more texture this way. You can also see i found the white paint and added more white to contrast the other colours.

Then i had what i think was a stroke of genius when it came to the circles. I was going to find a bowl or something in the kitchen - when i spotted my glass dome collection on the sideboard. They would be PERFECT for making circles. I just painted the edges and "stamped" them on the canvas. In some places the paint was lifted off - rather than stamping the new colour, but that made some really cool effects.
Almost done - then i added were some blobs of lime green paint where i thought it needed something to cut through the other colours. The final touch were the turquoise circles. I used my finger at this point because the paint brush was all mucked up - and yeah - too lazy to rinse it out. The whole thing took about two hours from start to finish. The time flew by.


Here is the final painting on the wall over the sofa. The colours actually work great together. But i am so looking forward to gettting rid of the yellow walls and turning the room into a vision of robin's egg blue. Then it will be perfect.