New Painting Finished-In time for the Literature Festival...

Hello,

I finished the painting I started recently, I mentioned it here, you can see what it looked like before. I wanted to create a painting for an exhibition which will coincide with the Swindon Literature Festival. I will post more information on it in my next post.

This painting was inspired by the poem El Olvido -which is by one of my favourite writers- Judith Ortiz Cofer. 

I wanted to share some of my process here with you on how I went about creating the painting.

The background colours were inspired by this sketch.

Once I had the basic colours down, I added some stencilling to create texture and more interest.

Here are the stencils I used, two were store bought, the black one on the right comes from a lamp which we no longer use at home. I knew I wanted to add the poem in the background and thought the best way to do that would be to use paint pens. These are the colours I used- the Liquitex brand comes in two different widths which contain acrylic paint. There are other brands out there, you just have to do a search on the internet if you are interested. I should add that this is a new tool for me so I was a bit nervous, but happy with the results.

At first, I thought I would just write a portion of the poem, but then decided I would continue...

I wanted the poem to be on the canvas, but not in an obvious way. I also wanted to go over the writing so I added some more elements-the butterfly wing which I use a lot in my work. 

The painting needed colour- for interest but to also to obscure some of the writing. I thought acrylic inks would work well because they are transparent.

I then added stamps, stencilling and some gel medium to create texture and add some shine.

Here are some close ups.

I hope you enjoyed my little tour and thanks for reading.

Bye for now.