Learning to Paint

A while back I talked about deciding to paint my own artwork. Yes I know it was a long while ago, but the point of the story is I finished it.
My Dad is an amazing artist (painting, sculptures, drawings, you name it he can do it) so I had a bit of help from him. He walked me through what kind of paint to choose for the style of painting I wanted. We decided on oil paints.

Then he showed me how to work with the paint the brush strokes. With lots of reminders to brush lightly and not to over brush.

With the base of the blue down, we had to take a break to let it cure (dry). Though oil paints never completely dry they do need time to cure before you continue adding colors over other colors.

And this is where I stalled out for a year. Minnesota has so few nice months that I didn't want to be stuck indoors painting during the summer. Then with my photography business I didn't get back to the painting this fall either. But Minnesota winters are always a great time to paint.
So back to it I went. Dad walked me through how to added and blend the colors I wanted to finish the background.

At this point I had to let it cure again before I could add the final piece. It takes a couple of weeks to get a decent enough skim over the paint to not blend with the new paints. A couple of weeks turned to a couple of months but finally I was ready to add the finishing touches.

I mapped out where I wanted the birds to go and traced around my birds with a pencil. Then I filled in the pencil with a dark grey (almost black). The black wire I free handed on to the canvas with a thin brush. After that I was done. I can't believe I finished and that it turned out how I wanted it to!

Now I just have to wait till it cures enough to put on my wall. It will go in the living room to round out my gallery wall, more on that later.

~ Cassi

Check out the links page to see where I am linking up this week.

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