Finally a Canvas

I finally took the leap and took all that I learned in my art journals to a canvas. My first canvas without a pretty picture to guide me, but straight from the heart onto the cloth.

I could take it further, as I thought I would do last night, but I like how she looks. I like the suggestion of her and the transparancy of the painting. I like that she leaves room for imagination. I see many things when looking at this. I like that it's messy and grungy and clean and pure all at the same time. She looks sad and insecure to me while I see strength and confidence, all at once. I see a man in the darkness lurking behind her and a face staring down at her.

I guess I see me when I look at her. Dark and light all blended together. It makes me wonder what other people see when they look at this painting.

So yes, I think I will leave it as is, maybe some touch-ups and details here and there and my name and date off course when I feel I'm truly done with it.

It was fun making this painting. I used a lot of techniques and it has a ton of texture. It is also very interactive, because I used the input from my friends and family for the various steps. I loved reaching out this way and I loved the responces I got.
And because of this approach I have lots of progress pics to show you.

I started out with a canvas I had lying around in the attick. It had been painted before and since I didn't really like what was on it, I painted it white. So it already had a lot of texture. First I took some blue and scraped it on, just to get rid of the white.

Then I asked my son what color I should use next, to keep it random and perhaps to keep me from taking the colors I always tend to use. He told me to use orange.

So I used orange and scratched all over the painting with a wooden skewer and wrote down that he told me to use orange. That was fun.

Next I applied some pink with stencils and scraped the rest on it.

I did some light blue over it and used my heat gun to create bubbles.

As I just got some new Daler Rowney Acrylic ink, I obviously had to use that.

I loved that, but I did feel I went sort off overboard with that, so I muted it all down with white.

That's when I thought I would make it into a little experiment. To play a game with it, so I took it to facebook and asked my friends what color or technique they would like to see next. I got lots of responses.

So I put the painting on the floor and tried to keep up with what was suggested. It actually gave me, the painting and the floor quite a scare...but it was a lot of fun.

I'm afraid I only took pictures with my phone of these stages. 

After I recovered from this little interactive game and all the mess I made was cleaned up, My daughter and I had some fun collaging some bits and pieces to it with some golden matt gel medium. While taking one last suggestion, for the color red, from facebook into account.

Still only a phone picture. 

I still hadn't decided which way would be up, so I turned the painting all around, staring at it, trying to see what was in there.

This is the orientation where I stopped. Can you see what I saw when I looked at this? Or do you see something completely different?

This is what I saw. I outlined it with some red soft pastel.

And filled it in with white gesso, fairly watery and with strong loose strokes, trying to stay tranclucent. Still thinking I would take the next step. I added more drippage and smudged it all out somewhat.

So there she is in the midst of chaos. An almost ghost like creature and I like her. I like what she represents, the questions she brings to my mind and I like how she got there.

I hope you like her also, and I would love to hear what questions or thoughts she brings to your minds.

Thank you so much for watching and I wish you all a beautiful weekend.

Linking this to:

• Eclectic Paperie: eP Picks Challenge - Gel Medium!
• Art journal Every Day: Spring Please (not an art journal page, but heavily inspired by all that I do in my art journals)
• Fashionable stamping challenges: challenge # 47 - anything goes (as I stamped the orange swirls, using  the stamps my sister gave me)
• Paint Party Friday: Week 10, Year 3 Check-in