I didn’t have a lot of time today to work in my studio, just had too many errands that needed to be taken care of, silly things like having the horn fixed on my car! You don’t realize how important that darn thing is until you need it and it doesn’t work. Kinda scary. But, at about 4PM I grabbed an hour and found that delicious feeling I get when I set foot through the door into my studio. I really do notice a change in myself. It is a combination of calm and excitement but a wonderful blend of the two feelings.
Anyway, I picked up the newest piece in my Women In My Family Series: Elizabeth Berni and began to add color to the background.. I started doing what I have done with the two previous pieces by sketching in the background with prisma colored pencils. But my eyes kept moving to the paints on my shelves and before I knew it I was gathering water, brushes and paints out. I choice jacquard seta color lemon yellow transparent paint and heavily diluted it. That’s what I used to paint over the pencil work. Because I diluted it a lot, and it is transparent paint, I got just what I was looking for. The background has a soft yet delicious outdoor feel to it and the pencil sketches add texture to the overall effect. This was especially important to me since Elizabeth Berni loves to be in the sunshine, especially on a swing if there is one to be found. She has beautiful hair, which I know she adores, so I added some metallic gold paint and blended that in to the existing original pencil work. Finally, I added some pearl Ex Pigment (interference gold) to the diluted lemon yellow and made a wash. This went over the first coat of yellow paint and made the entire piece shimmer. Perfect.
With just a few seconds left to work, I found three pieces of my hand dyed fabric and am now auditioning them for the borders. Today, I see patients so the studio will wait until tomorrow or perhaps late tonight.
