Painting Again

As my retirement approached, I knew that I wanted to start painting again. That process began around the beginning of August. I purchased some acrylic paints (red, yellow, blue, black and white), gel medium and a six pack of affordable 14x14 inch pre-stretched canvases. These canvases would be used to help re-acquaint myself with the painting process.

I decided to look through my portfolio of digital art work for inspiration for what to paint. I chose a picture I created a while ago called Michigan Sky as a jumping off point.

Michigan Sky (July 24, 2022)
Digital image created with the Sketchbook app

I appreciated its simple composition and color scheme. While the colors in the image may, at first glance, seem like they’re just different shades of blue, there are other colors underneath. This “underpainting” is more noticeable around the edges of the circles and stars but it can be seen throughout the image.

Here are some detail images:

Michigan Sky (July 24, 2022) - Detail
Digital image created with the Sketchbook app

Layered colors like this, in my own work and the work of other artists, have always appealed to me. Playing around with the opacity and transparency of the colors as I layer them on top of each other ends up creating effects that are, for me, visually “delicious”.

This is the effect I wanted to achieve with the painting I was about to create.

Here are some photos of the painting at various stages of completion. At some point, I’d like to learn more about how to photograph my work so that the colors are more accurately represented:

After sketching out the composition onto the canvas with a pencil, I began covering the canvas with color. I wanted the base layers to be warmer than the eventual cooler layers I’d place over them.

After a couple layers of reddish-orangish browns and grays, I added shades of blue and some green.

The layers continue. I intentionally painted close to, but not right up against, the edges of the shapes so that there would be a bit of an outline around those areas.

Here are some pictures of the finished painting. I took my painting outside and photographed it under natural light: