I felt like creating something. Something bright. Something textured. It was fall and I loved the vibrant color all around me. the contrast of birch trees against the bright fall colors intrigued me.
I looked for something to use as a backdrop. It would be a bonus if I had a frame for whatever I created so that it was all ready to go. A mixed media bicycle piece was stashed behind my art room shelves. It had been great fun to do, and it was perfect for the large scale gathering I created it for. (40" x 50") But it just did not fit in my home and none of my kids had room for it either. I decided to turn it vertically and transform it into a fall mixed media piece that would fit on my dining room wall. I snapped a photo of the bicycle to remember it recently I sent it to CanvasPop to be printed on a smaller canvas and framed - 24" x 36."
[I often re-design over pieces I'm not crazy about, but truth be told, I do regret designing over this one! I loved the texture on it. But at least I did have a photo I could use to make a smaller replica to remember it.]
It was a journey of ups and downs! I started by applying a light coat of gesso over the top. I even thought perhaps I should have waited and made it a winter scene so that I could utilize the white of the maps and textured paper in the background. But the vibrancy of fall was on my brain!
I started blocking in the background with vibrant color and quickly realized that I did not like the trees. I taped large white paper trees on the canvas to try out some different compositions. I also covered up one of the trees to see how it would look before I started painting again.
This was looking better to me, so I painted over the tree I disliked.( Under the blue and red paper) I began blocking out the trees in white gesso and kept moving forward from there.
This was better, but the now the forest looked like it was on fire!
I began playing with other shapes for the background trees and finally settled on something I liked.hen over the top, smoothing the paper out as I
This was better, but as you can see in the final painting, adding some evergreens among the background trees helped. I also did more shading to give it more depth. I'll include some closeups and the final image.
The embossed circle designs were torn from paper that I had run through a Cuttlebug.(Used in scrapbooking) I always like to add some free-flowing lines to my pieces - in this case I used a black sharpie and a white gel pen.
I thought this might be the final piece. After seeing it for awhile I brushed a satin charcoal gray on the frame. It helped, but I was hanging it on an accent wall similar to the red border and it was simply way too much red I ended up painting the red border black.
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