From Big to Small

A week ago I was painting ginormous 8 foot square canvases, and today I painted itty-bitty 6 inch square canvases!  Variety is good!  It's been forever since I painted something small, and I discovered today that my small brushes STINK!  How on earth did I ever paint with these things?!  Clearly it's time to go to the art supply store (oh, the tragedy of that statement!!).

The top one I'm calling "Dazed" and the bottom one is "Naked In Winter".

Strength, Honor, Glory, Blessing

Done!  I really wanted to finish these before school ended....and the last day of school is tomorrow!  Yea!

Funny, I was struggling with colors for these.  I needed some variety...no repeats...but there are only 6 major colors in the rainbow, and I have 8 canvases...so there was a whole lot of tweaking going on.  I actually had the thought that God used an awful lot of brown, so why not include a brown canvas?  Well, when the rest of the canvases are all brilliant jewel-like colors, brown is NOT a good choice.  Clearly God carries it off beautifully, but I couldn't!  So the brown got painted over.

Next?  Two sets of bifold panels for Camp Elim, a kids' Bible camp up the road from Woodland Park.  I love that place!  I have no idea what images I'll be painting yet.  I guess we'll all be surprised!

Riches and Wisdom

Here are the next two canvases.  Funny how the text in the top image looks white, and the text in the bottom image looks yellow.  Clearly the lighting was wretched, so the images are less than accurate!  Oh well.  You can still see what they look like.

The blue one got tweaked half way through.  I had started with the lighter blue being just an off-center circular shape.  But after I added the swirls, I decided that the blue circle part looked like a bird had flown overhead and disrespected my canvas!  So I enlarged that lighter section.  Which means I had to re-paint part of the swirls.  Heavens, we can't have any birdy-do on the canvas!!

Swirly Doodles in Paint

This is why I was doodling swirls.  There will be eight of these canvses, all different colors, all from Revelation 5:12.  I've placed a slightly insane deadline for myself.  I want to finish all 8 canvases before school gets out.  That would be May 24th.  Less than two weeks.  I'll let you know if I start twitching....

Doodling with a Purpose

I'm thinking the next set for my church needs to have a simpler background than what I've done most recently.  No people.  No full range of colors.  So last night I drew up this swirly doodle, thinking I may have this sort of faded in the background.  I think I like it!  I'll probably do more doodles, that way I'll have some variety.  I don't want all 8 canvases to look exactly like each other!

DONE!! DONE!! DONE!!

Aahhhhh.  Done.

A couple of artist friends came over and gave me a critique, after which I made a few tiny changes.  No pouting this time!

And I'm done!  It feels FANTASTIC.  All three canvases will get a clear coat early next week, and then it's time to ship them!

I'd love to say that there's a delightful respite in front of me, but that's not true.  I have already started preliminary sketches for the next set of canvases at my church.  Should be a busy week!

Thanks for following along, all you in cyber-land!