The Gift

The inspiration:

The other day I had a sudden, blinding, OMG inspiration! I was trying to do some Christmas shopping and was coming up blank. Then, I thought about my dad, who is 92 years young. He did some oil painting when I was a child. He also had a love for sports cars. I remember that Dad had an Alfa Romeo. I decided I would try to create a painting with my dad and me, and the Alfa, as a gift for him.

#5

5" X 7" canvas

The process:

• I found an image of the Alfa online and traced it onto the canvas. 
• I traced the image of the man and girl after tracing the Alfa. (Some day I will learn to draw!)
• I cut a small hole out of a piece of paper and placed that over portions of the car (on my computer screen) to better be able to see the color. I found it really helpful to isolate a portion of the image.

What I like about the painting:

• I was pleased with my attempt to make a shiny car with sparkling chrome
• I sense a feeling when looking at the picture, perhaps longing. Perhaps it is only because of my emotions around my dad.

What I might do differently:

• I am not a fan of the background. I had a number of thoughts going through my head; I wanted to focus on the car, I wanted to make it seem dream-like and I wanted to make it a stormy day. I am not a fan of the gloomy colors, although the sadness it brings does reflect my feelings about issues my dad has been experiencing as he ages.
• It might be interesting to experiment with a glaze.... I've never done that before. I'd experiment on something else, first, however!
• I might lighten up the sky
• I liked preparing the canvas with another color. I think I'd use something closer to what I anticipate the background to end up.

What I learned:

• I played around with three different blues to create green.  It was great fun to see the variations when Thalo, Cerulean and Cobalt blues were mixed with Cadmium yellow, light. The green with Thalo is perfect for a Colorado blue spruce!

The blues, moving clockwise from 'noon':

Thalo, Cerulean, Cobalt

• I purchased a few tubes of Academy Acrylic and the others I have are Liquitex. I much prefer the texture of the Liquitex.

I decided I really hated the painting. The car gets lost in the grayness of the day. So, I chose to repaint the background. I really like that about working with acrylics. Here is version #2:

I'm not all that sure that I like it. Yes, the car seems a bit brighter, but the mood seems lost. Oh, and I just realized I forgot the shadows that dad and I would have cast.... back to the brushes!!