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For me, it starts with a photograph, usually of a person.  I had found a clever little gadget called a PODO which acts like a selfie stick without the stick.  It is a small square lens that can be attached to any surface by a sticky pad on the device.  It connects by blue tooth to your phone.   This allows me to shoot photos at unusual angles and create perspective distortion which I find fun to paint.  I was sitting at a desk at an art exhibit for the day and decided to play with my new "toy".   I stuck the PODO at a low angle on the desk leg and set my phone on the floor in front of me so I could see what the lens was picking up.   Here is one of the photos I took that day.

I straightened the image, cropped the photo and eliminated the background. This is a painting I wanted to paint over.  I was hoping to save the circle patterns in the background. I covered the face with turquoise acrylic,  had fun spritzing with water and alcohol and then turned it upside down to disguise the image underneath. Using my line drawing as a guide, I drew the new image onto the paper and proceeded to establish a value pattern. Adding color but it is beginning to look too much like a cartoon  but I press on! Not at all happy at this point. Along with many other problems,  I decided that the hands were too small for the head.   Start over by  covering with gesso and redraw the image. I might have over exaggerated the hands this time.  I photographed the painting and then put it into my favorite app where I could overlay my current painting with my digital drawing and save the blend.  Now I have a guide to correct the drawing! Hands are definitely way off but very impressed with how close I got the face drawing freehand. Okay, drawing corrected.  I was surprised the original watercolor drawing wouldn't wipe off of the gesso but it will wind up being covered with acrylic anyway, so a distraction but not a problem. In the end I painted out the white pants and put several more thin coats of color on the background.  Only thing left of the original painting is faint circles hinting of what is buried underneath.
 I just finished this painting yesterday.  I have been exploring some ways to work with acrylic lately.  I managed to photograph the work at the end of each day, with a small exception.  I forgot to take a photo after the charcoal drawing and remembered after I had started to add color but one can still see the progression clearly.  I wasn't sure how I was going to finish the painting until I was there.  That is a nice quality about acrylic is it is so changeable and fixable.  With watercolor there is much less flexibility.

This particular piece of paper has 3 different paintings if viewed through an x-ray machine.  I don't even remember what the original failed painting was.  I covered that over with collage papers and did a painting on that.  Another dog!  Time to reinvent.  So here are the steps I took to get to this image.  I think I will keep this one. Lots of spray with water and alcohol to create some texture and surface interest.

I drew the image on with charcoal because I could make corrections easily.  Once I was satisfied with the drawing, I went over the lines with acrylic paint in sepia.  Once dry I washed the charcoal off with a damp cloth. Establishing some value patterns This is the ugly duckling stage  where doubt starts to creep in. Now I have to make some major decisions as to the final direction I want to take this painting in. I even surprised myself!

Posted by Myrna Wacknov at 3:04 PM 6 comments As much as I loved the golden background color on this painting, there was a lack of color harmony that was bothering me.  I could have glazed with a warm color over the skin tones but I decided to go with a cool color in the background.  I was hesitant to do anything because it couldn't be reversed if I didn't like it.  It was risky business but I took a chance and  I am very satisfied with the results.

Posted by Myrna Wacknov at 5:22 PM 4 comments