Canvas #10: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

This canvas did double duty for me, satisfying not only Day 10 of the 30 Canvases challenge, but also Week 1 of the Wonderstrange 50 Canvases in 2014 challenge.

The Wonderstrange challenge was to use three stencils on one canvas.

When the paint from the last stencil dried, I gesso'ed in a figure and created a fairy tale sort of story:

I didn't know at this point that she would be an evil princess, but that's soon what she became:  An Evil Princess in search of a hard black heart, the better to punish pretty stepdaughters down the road.

If you lean very close, I'll tell you a secret: I love this canvas.  It might even be my favorite from the challenge thus far.

Canvas #9: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

This weekend, I had some fairly major things to get done that did not involve painting, but by God, I was going to paint anyway!  Nay, I was going to stand on a hill like Scarlett O'Hara, shake my paintbrush at the sky, and make rash vows before God and everyone to CATCH UP WITH THE CHALLENGE!  (And indeed I did!)

Here's Canvas 9, which introduces yet another topic with which I have a macabre fascination: People from history who have been beheaded.  In this case, I painted Anne Boleyn with her de facto executioner, Henry VIII, or as he was also known, her husband.
 
Since I had a warm color palette, I followed the advice of Sal Scheibe, momentarily relinquished my obsession with purple shadows, and went with a Raw Umber (light and dark varieties) on poor Anne's face.

Canvas #8: 30 Canvases in 30 Days

SO I have this thing for couples with serious height differences.  I don't know why.  I don't know where it came from.  But I love it when couples have serious height differences, which is one of the many reasons I can't quit Napoleon and Josephine, or for that matter, today's subjects: Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln.

On this canvas, I mixed up some custom pinks and then a custom kind of a sea greenypants blueish.  Yes, I'm a professional color namer.  Don't hate.

I disliked these white bits almost as soon as I added them - but that's the beauty of paint.  Don't like it?  Paint over it!

Now . . . GESSO!  Right over that second flower stencil.  Oh well.

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.