ALL MIXED UP - 1

This painting began with a photo from the local farm show.

I cropped and enlarged the photo, traced and then reworked the drawing and went over my lines, let it sit for a few days to review, making a few adjustments here and there and then finally began painting!  

My final drawing, taped to a plastic board.

In the next photo I have wet the entire paper and dropped some colors onto the wet paper, allowing them to float around, generally in the areas that will ultimately be those colors.  Note how the paper is buckling and you might be able to see a shine - I get my paper really wet at this point.

The next photo shows the paper the next day - you can see that allowing it to dry naturally overnight allows the paper to shrink back down and get flat.  Essentially I "stretch" my paper this way, but without the soaking and stapling, and with getting my first light washes onto the painting.  The key is to ALLOW THE PAINTING TO DRY NATURALLY - no hair dryers!  This usually will take an overnight wait.

The next photo shows the beginning of the paint application - I usually begin pretty light and, as I say  "sneak up on the color"!

The next couple of posts will show the progression of the painting.