When smalls grow up

Facebook was kind enough to remind me it's time to add something. So submitted for your consideration and a little how-to demo, here's the story of how one little painting grew up to become a bigger one.

The study. A 5x7 oil on sized and toned 300# watercolor paper, recently sold and before it left to it's new home I wanted to get in a larger version from this. I have the photo reference of the actual interior but some things happened in the study that I really liked. A nice loose vagueness that came about because of the scale. This is why we (instructors) often talk about the use of big brushes. We like paint and nothing gets big, fat, juicy notes and lost edges like a big brush.

My initial block in with house paints. As you may know by now, it is my new fascination. It's loose, drippy, gooey and not as controllable color-wise because of the random value/color thing (see previous Ooops posts). But it is compatible with acrylic gesso primed canvases, though not oil primed, and it dries fast and there's something about the surface I really like. Sorry about the softness of the  images, low light iphone pics.

The thing about the study that is appealing is the vagueness of some areas. It's more about light/dark and hard/soft contrasts.... and paint. The problem with a larger version is, I get caught up in the little zones and lose the bigger picture. Trying to maintain the lost edge thing at this point.

Honing the shapes but trying to keep broken edges is a little easier wet into wet, the paint had been dry for a day so the nature of the marks changes. But thanks to my handy new tool, the knock down knife (see last post), I was able to soften the wet strokes and break edges.

The almost final pass. I've got to harden a few edges and lose some of the stuff I've added but I'm liking where it's going.... so far. The trick is leaving all the stuff that I like in little areas without over rendering.