I'm always amazed when something that seems to have gone wrong in the first pass can eventually be turned into a much better something with a little time and perspective.
This was a random doodle basically done as a stream of consciousness painting last Fall. No pre-planning just sketch out a pumpkin and some indian corn using only my brush.
Wasn't happy with it - the husks from the corn were going every which way, defying gravity; it just wasn't speaking to me. And yet, I couldn't put it in my scrap/testing paper pile. Fast forward to this year where I had forgotten what my original intent was behind the exercise and sat down to see what I could salvage. This is what I came up with.
The husks are still as willy nilly as ever but i feel like this was more what I was hoping for. Knowing me, I'll continue to play with it - the husks continue to cry out for more attention in terms of texture and shadow - but at least I don't feel like I should be using it to test colours on either.
It's done!
Things have been quiet here because I've been working on a commission that I received this summer to paint a metal crosscut saw. Not my usual substrate but a challenge I was up for. The brief was it needed to contain the owner's last name, a hawk and a wolf. And the teeth needed to be up because they look like lots of "H"s - they do - which echoes back to the name.
First off, my hat goes off to the sign painters of old who did this kind of work day in, day out by hand. It takes an incredibly steady touch and a ton of patience LOL. I had to constantly tell myself to slooooow down. That patience came in handy as well as I had to adjust to painting with acrylics.
They work completely differently from my familiar watercolours. It's been about three years since I've had them out of the cupboard to play and while w/c will always be my first love, I don't want to let another three years go by before I work in them again. To that end, I've signed up for a self scheduling class on Craftsy, that I will get into this fall.
Here's a closer look at the hawk and wolf. It's hard to see here but I tried to make the moon show some of its craters so that it wasn't just a big ol' blob of light. Quite pleased with my hawk. Fingers crossed the client likes it too!
