New Painting!

I had the WHOLE day off today.  I'd looked for jobs, submitted a bunch of resumes the days before and had no shows tonight.  So naturally, I balanced my checkbook, cleaned, organized and read to orphans.  I kid!  I hate orphans!  (More kidding!)  I used today to paint... and man, it felt good.

When I was home last I was drawn to this photo my mom had taken in Iceland and framed:

Isn't that beautiful??  Mama Eolin has a really good eye.  (She took about 390348309438930438 photos, and that's just from last year...) It kinda already looks like a painting to me, which is maybe why I HAD to paint it.

So first step:  SKETCH.

Fascinating, right?  I use a charcoal pencil to roughly gauge where everything will go.  I know this looks like a child did it, but it took me an hour.  45 minutes was just looking at the picture and then looking at my canvas, then looking at the picture again, then back at the canvas.  (Where's my Icy/Hot??)

Second step:  Start to color block.

SQUEE!  So this process takes a few hours.  Figuring out colors and paint strokes, as well as fixing anything that doesn't look right proportionally along the way as once the next layer goes on, it's harder to fix anything I don't like.

Step three:  Landscaping! 

The grassy hills are in the style of Van Gogh, or at least my interpretation of Van Gogh.  I love his brush strokes and how he translated what he saw through paint.  I want to be just like him but without the bucket of crazy and just go around that whole bit about giving body parts to hookers and suicide.  (WHY are painters so messed up?  Thank GOODNESS I'm so rational and even keel..... right?!?!)

Now the details and voila...  It's done!!

I started painting at 1pm and finished at 9:30pm.  (A few breaks in there along the way... this biddy needs her tea, thankyouverymuch.)  I have a bunch of other photos from the same town that my mom sent me, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get to those SOON!  And hey, if I remain unemployed, yes, I will get to them sooner than later.

(NOTE:  Not sure if this is for sale yet.  If so, I'll be posting it in my future Etsy store.)

By the way, I've watched the following art movies/docs lately and all have been fascinating (and are avail on Netflix):

* The Art of the Steal

* Exit Through The Gift Shop

* Frida

* Pollock

* Beautiful Losers

I also just started reading Steve Martin's latest novel set in the art world, An Object of Beauty.  SO GOOD.

Okay, time to clean up the studio (read: "kitchen") and sit on the couch for an unauthorized amount of time and think about WHY my overhead neighbors must stomp when they walk.  Why can't they sit down too?  Sigh...