After viewing all the DSFDF images..I figured I better get hopping...so I did. Let me start by saying I would not have painted this if I was looking for something inspiring to paint......but....(and as I like to say the truth always comes after a but) this really put the test to me for several reasons and I really enjoyed doing it.
Here are a few reasons this was a good exercise. First the very reason that I would not have painted it is the best reason.....it makes me work past the basis of painting only what I know or "inspires me". Second, I never.....absolutely never paint on a small canvas like this. The smallest I have ever used was an 8x10...I may have painted on a 6x8 somewhere in the past...but never a 5x7. Well, guess what?...I liked it....I liked it a lot! I started painting and about an hour later I had a little painting!! That's pretty cool stuff in my book! Third, after reading the article on Karin Jurick in American Artist Magazine....I thought..hmmmm....black canvas, eh? She uses black latex paint to cover the canvas and I did the same...acrylic tube paint actually. So a black canvas is what I decided to paint on....again something I never, ever do! And, well, you have probably guessed it....I liked that too! It is probably something I won't do all the time....but it did make me think differently. Everything you see on the canvas that looks black is the black canvas. The rest are shapes and marks to denote the light areas in the photo. So there you have it...my DSFDF challenge this time around.
The photo we used to paint the challenge
There is something really familiar about this image... aside from the fact that it is a very famous monument. As many of you know I live in a very old house....Victorian era...old wood, old floors...... and old wallpaper, layers of it from turn of the century to maybe 1960 something! Every night while I lay in bed reading or watching a movie....there is a faint, ghostlike pattern repeated over and over the walls of the master bedroom. The colors are cool grays and pink, white and a little green. I see this pattern and on first impression wonder what in the world would possess someone to paper their room with this design. I think about the little pattern that repeats itself over and over and sometimes it makes me a little dizzy. Other times it reminds me of the Fifties and makes me think of vacation trips by car as a child on Route 66 or some other infamous highway. It also reminds me that Spring always comes....and things are born anew every year. I lay awake dreaming of a thrifty woman, in a little day number with matching hat, cat eye glasses, shopping on a budget that is tight and looking through paper swatch books of wall paper laid out like family albums. I go through the steps with her...measuring and calculating.....checking how much she can spend, what colors to use and will anyone else like it. Finally I understand...she wants a nice home...she is trying to dress things up a bit, while sticking to the hard line allowance and there at the bottom of the bin or at the back of the book is something she likes....and she can afford it. Perhaps she has the same feelings I do when I look at this design....maybe it's as simple as what she can afford......but then.... maybe....she just liked Washington D.C......Wallpaper (Portrait of me at four years old)
A snippet of wallpaper from our home
I kind of like it actually or maybe I HAVE to like it because I
just can't afford anything else right now?...:)
Until next time,
Theresa
