IT'S DONE...NO FOOLING!

My critique group acts as my expert eyes.  Often, they see something I missed.  Sometimes their opinions are different from mine and I am not swayed.  Either way, I find it very helpful to know what others see and I value the knowledge at expertise from each of them.  Thursday morning we gather to share the week's efforts.  Right now, I feel this piece is finished.  I am happy I managed to keep much of the transparency of the background pieces.  I was particularly delighted where some of the pattern fell on the face in a serendipitous way (beside the eye and crease down from the nostril)

A WORK IN PROGRESS!

Here is the painting on my easel.  These insulation boards used instead of gatorboard to support the painting are great.  Not only are they cheap, lightweight and easy to cut to whatever size you want, you can also pin into them.  I have some long pins with beaded heads left over from my sewing days.  I unpinned the bottom so the edges are curling in this photo.  

I took a large sheet of tracing paper and placed it over the background and drew my image on.  I surprised myself and got it almost right the first try!  I am getting better at judging space and distance working this large.  All that practice I have been getting.  I made a few small corrections then transferred the image and went over it with ink drawn with my favorite coffee stirrer stick.  I used some white gesso in the highlighted areas.  Now I am building up the color with very diluted fluid acrylic.  I should be able to finish in with an hour or two more painting.

I want to thank those of you who took the time to comment on my last post.  In response, I want to share my thoughts with you.  I put aside the very best drawings without a plan for their future at this time.  The rest I decided to not see them as too precious. I want to focus on the "doing" more than the results.  If I produce enough work, some of it will turn out special, lots will be "okay" and some will be suited to the trash heap.  But all will have engaged my artistic muscle and fulfilled my desire to explore, express and make something with my heart and hand.  For me, that is where the fulfillment is.  I have photographed each drawing as I created them and plan to make a book at the end of the year long project as a way of documenting it.  I also had purchased a second calendar.  I have used a few of these pages when a drawing went particularly bad!  I feel I don't need to keep 365 drawings in tact and I am having fun finding new ways to incorporate them into larger pieces.  I used drawings I was unhappy with for my practice piece, so I was not concerned how that one might turn out.  If anyone has suggestions for other uses for these drawings, please send me a note.