Canvas #7: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

As much as I love to paint historical figures and characters from pop culture, I felt compelled to do one girl who lives only in my imagination.  So!  I did a sweet little circus girl with flapper hair and a very stumpy chin.  Stumpy chins make me melt like a Snickers in a hot car!

Here was my start: a red base with a purple flower stencil and streaks of lilac and goldenrod:

Once that dried, I got very pouncy with a dark green, which looks well nigh black against the red:

After adding touches of white, I was ready to gesso!

I was really very much in love with her at this point, which made me nerrrrrrrvous about painting on the mouth.  So I didn't!  I used a gel pen and drew it on!  When I didn't like quite where I put it, I quickly wiped it away and redrew it!  I'm going to have to use this technique again!

Canvas #6: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

Okay, so I've linked this for Day 10, but in truth, it's only my 6th canvas.


If this challenge were called "A Canvas a Day for 30 Days," clearly I would have taken a Fail Sail this week.  Thankfully, there is no painting-per-day requirement, so I am still in it!  Woo to the hoo to the hell yeah!

As I was saying, then, here is my sixth canvas, a playful, plus-sized mermaid attending the weekly meeting of the Cool Teeth Club.

First coats of paint:

Hey!  One of my new stencils!

I don't know about you, but I am really tired of supermodel-skinny mermaids, so here's me thumbing my nose at THAT whole convention.

At first, I decided I might make her handless, like the victim of a shark attack, but she's not a victim, dammit!  She also gets to have a fierce fishy friend.

And . . . here she is all finished!  I gave her diastema (i.e. an awesome gap between her teeth) because I love diastema.  Oh, and I might have a bit of a gap myself. 

Canvas #5: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

I think I mentioned that I joined this challenge a little late.  Did I also mention that the only stack of true canvases I had in the house were 9x12? In retrospect, I probably should have used some of my canvas panels, because after painting five 9x12 canvases in three days, I am kind of exhausted. 

For Day 5, I started off with a very bright orange and a very bright pink. 

I gessoed in two figures, whom I intended to be Napoleon and Josephine.  Given the French connection, I stenciled on some fleur de liseseses.  (That is totally the plural of fleur de lis.  Don't play like it isn't.)

Oh grumpy Napoleon, don't be sad.  You will soon be wearing your emperor's new clothes.

Okay, so grumpy Napoleon wasn't sad about his clothes; he was sad about his queen being in love with another man.  And I can't help history.  What I could help was the upper right corner, with which I became completely obsessed. 

It needed something.  It needed . . . white?  I felt it did.  I started splattering white paint into the upper corner, but it wasn't enough.  Maybe I needed to add another fleur de lis.  So I did.  One thousand six hundred and forty two tiny changes later, I was finished.

And I was happy.

Canvas #4: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

Right, so we all know that Marie Antoinette never really said, "Let them eat cake."  That doesn't stop me from wanting to paint her with cake.

This is probably a good time to start documenting things I'm learning while I'm doing this:

1) Don't use walnut ink too early in the process.  It darkens the background too much.

2) Don't let the background boss you around.  In this case, I got all tripped up in my choice of color palette because I was preoccupied with how damn dark the background was.  I should have just painted over the background.  I would have enjoyed the process much more.

3) At this moment, I am obsessed with temples.  And dorky mouths.  That's not a lesson.  I don't care.

Canvas #3: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

After an exhilarating day of creating my Day 1 and Day 2 painting, I smashed face first into a wall with my Day 3 canvas.  Boo.  Walls are mean.  And hard.  And face-scrapey.

I made a pretty good start of things, although I was a little cranky that I couldn't find my gel medium and had to use Uhu:

I turned up the contrast there so you could see how bright it looked before I toned it down.

Once the glaze dried, I added a figure that I was totally in love with.  We're talking smitten.  I would have worn this one's class ring all day.

Then I had to add hair.  I don't know why hair screws me up, but it does.  I added hair that I hated, and then I had to cover it up, and then suddenly, I was doing a modern Bride of Frankenstein.  Even while I was doing her, I wasn't too sure how I felt about that.

Once I finished, I definitely did not feel happy with the composition or the overall look.  BOO!

Today, I worked on her some more.  She's still not ringing my bell, but she's better.  It's the Bride, v3.2 (with space for notes).

I wanted to add a cigarette on the left (our right) side of her mouth, as if one side needed oxygen and the other side just needed a damn smoke.  I'm too exhausted, though.  Five 9x12 canvases in three days is a lot.

Oh!  Valuable lesson: Stand the canvas up periodically to look at it the way it will be looked at while it hangs on a wall.  Totally different perspective.  Very useful - and sometimes mildly shocking.

Canvas #2: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

For Day 2 of the 30 Canvases in 30 Days challenge, I did a feminist spin on one of my favorite themes: Hansel & Gretel.  In this case, Gretel yearns to explore the woods, but Hansel holds her back.  Or maybe she's The Woman, and Hansel is The Man, trying to keep her domesticated.  I don't know.  I just work here.

First coat(s):

 More yellow!

 

And perhaps  . . . still more purple?  And some green? 

 

Now to gesso in Hansel & Gretel.

 

And give them a healthier complexion!

And then forget to take pictures - again.  Dammit! I am happy with the finished product, though!

Canvas #1: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

I signed up for a "30 Canvases in 30 Days" challenge a tiny bit late, so this is my first canvas . . . which I am linking to the page where everyone else is posting a 4th canvas. 

Today was my first day without guests since December 22, so I hunkered down in my horrifying painting clothes and had a ball.  Seriously, I felt almost drunk with the joy and the lightheartedness and the freedom.  No Christmas commission panic!  No deadline dread!  No restrictions of any kind!  Just paint!  While paint dried, I also dashed in and out of the kitchen making homemade poppy seed buns and lentil meatballs with my son.  I'm almost never that organized, so I had to document it.  It will make me feel better on days when my husband arrives home to find me in the fetal position with a Post-It Note stuck to my forehead that says, "Please order pizza."

First coat(s) of paint: 

 Walnut spray!

How about some stencil action?

And maybe a stamp?

Although I loved the background, I knew I wanted to paint Shakespeare, so I wanted a neutral glaze for an aging effect.

Shakespeare in gesso.

Hrms.  Shakespeare looks a little feminine.

Oooh!  I know!  Shakespeare's sister!  In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf names her Judith!

Once I realized I was painting Judith, I got so entranced that I more or less - or entirely - forgot to take pictures.  Here is Judith, the sister imagined by Virginia Woolf, who is just as bright as Shakespeare and just as interested in the world around her, except that every time she tries to read Ovid, her parents come in and say, "Judith, mend the socks" or some such.  I painted "Judith" with green, but the rest is in yellow: Judith, mend the socks now.

I believe that shall be the title.

And that's Day 1!