Thank you for all the understanding comments on my last post concerning this matter! It really helps to know that you're not the only one who struggles with colliding painterly and X-mas decorating/cleaning interests. :)
(this is just a fraction of the whole canvas...scroll down for more ;)
There was a moment - right after I had added the blue that is meant to resemble the air and the sky on a hot summer day - when I thought I had messed it all up. Uh oh - the blue I had mixed with some white Gesso and some drops of a deep blue media fluid acrylic wasn't turquoise enough to contrast the flowers' colours and redoing all the blue space would have meant to spend more time on painting (which would have meant even less time for X-mas stuff...lol) - and also the risk of loosing precious texture from the crackle underneath! But I finally found a way to fix it rather quickly by scraping a vibrant red colour and some white Gesso with a palette knife onto some spots (which made the green pigment content from the blue I had used pop a bit more). Phew!
At one o'clock in the morning (and several "finishing touches" later) I sat in front of my bright and bloomin' flowery meadow and was (finally) content and happy (and ready for some relaxed sleep)!
(if you click on the images you get a larger view so you can see all the detail)
It's a 10''x 23'' (25 x 58 cm) canvas which I prepped with some Texture Crackle and heavy wet on wet colour spray misting to create random colour spots. Then the dry and highly textural surface was painted and doodled on with Gesso, acrylics and various markers.
I am still looking for a title for my canvas. It shows Bertram the grasshopper, who is preparing to leave this part of the meadow.
Maybe he's on the lookout for new adventures. Or he just wants to get away from Pubert, the ever ranting mosquito (who obviously suffers a heavy depression and scarcely makes it to the next blood filling station).
Besides this social mini-drama there's typical "meadow activity" of course.
Tiny moss is growing in the shade of some delicate crocus and other beauties' leaves.
And there's no real flowery meadow of course without the Canadian Burnet (= der "Gemeine Wiesenknopf" in German, which - if translated literally - means "Common Meadow Button")!
Bertram really has to make a very high jump to get past this large specimen:
Have you ever taken a really close look at a flower's construction? We tend to think of flowers as being quite "simple" - but in fact they aren't!
And there are so many different kinds of them! And they all work differently, have different needs and "guests" (like Maria, the lady bug - she prefers to spend her nights in the shelter of a wild Orchid's blossom for example). Here she is - getting ready for the night after a visit with her best friend Mathilda (an excentric dung beetle lady):
But even the simple stems of grasses or seedlings make a beautiful sight, don't they?
So I hope you have enjoyed your trip and meeting Bertram & Co. ! And I hope you do find some of the magic that I see and find in a common flowery meadow in my painting too. ;)
(C'mon, Pubert, ye grumpy ole chap! Feelers up! How about a little smile? Just give it a try. )
Claudia xxx
