Thursday, March 16, 2017

Sundial



It was intended to be a simple project: alter a large plain canvas into something that could be hanged over the fireplace. My original plan was to apply a background paint in pink and then cover the entire canvas with doodles using a white puffy paint. In my mind's eye, I had imagined white doodles standing out  brightly against the pink background. Alas, it did not turn out that way. It actually looked depressingly vapid!


So, I glazed the whole painting with a wash of blue. 


It was an improvement from the previous one but still not satisfactory. Then I decided that if I am in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound. So more layers of doodles and more layers of glazing followed
After all that,  it still looked like a nicely layered background lacking a focal point. I was reluctant to make it into a collage project since it was a large canvas (36"x 24") and would involve days of work. The idea of adding embroidery (or more like string art) came to me in sleep. The next morning, I started on it as soon as I got up.


After a couple of hours it looked like this. 


It finally felt complete and ready to take its place above the mantelpiece. 



It wasn't a complicated project involving complex techniques. What it needed was lots of creative thinking to bring it together.

Linked to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristen for hosting.