Painting holiday
I´m having a week off right now, Easter holidays, and I´m using every day to paint for the exhibition in July. Today I finished the largest watercolour painting I have ever done, 1.40 meters wide (approx. 55”). The image above is a detail from the work in progress, with some tape still on it.
It´s been a really interesting experience to work this big. 80 percent of the time I worked with this painting I spent doubting that it would ever become a good one. Watercolours are slow to work with, and always dry lighter than when you put them down on paper, so the painting constantly looked too pale until the very finishing touches. Then, suddenly, it came alive, the contrasts were there, as I wanted them, and I feel quite happy with it.
I work a lot with patterns in my paintings. I love constructing repeating patterns, cut them out as stencils (well, the cutting part isn´t that fun, but it´s necessary) and use them in every way possible. I cut this little rhomb shaped flower yesterday, and used it in a painting today.
Edit: the piece is 55”, not 55′ as I had first written. How am I supposed to know how many little apostrophes you need to say “inches” in Am. English? Why don´t you guys just adopt the metric system, like everybody else? ; )
I am so glad you shared this! And all the while, I have been so frustrated with repeating patterns and I never can do them exactly the same!
I thought about cutting things out, but never have taken the time to actually do it.
Beautiful work!
Just beautiful!
Love your art. Yes, that IS what I always say here. But. “I. LOVE. YOUR. ART.”
I hope we get to see the finished piece – your work is always just so beautiful. It’s fun to see it in progress, too. I like stencil work, too, although I haven’t cut any for quite some time. The one in the picture is really very nice! nancy
this sounds so cool, the parts shown are great. Cant wait to see the HUGE finishe peice.
Oh and maybe a person next to it for a sense of scale
Turns out it isn´t that huge after all. See Rock´s comment below.
The typo kind of made my “big” painting rather small in comparison. ; )
Gorgeous! Love how you did the grass around the house and the perspective is great!
Your artwork is big in style, heart, and technical prowess and my longtime admiration to match; but, the thought of this art piece being 55 feet wide is way over the top, a conceptual vision bordering on the insane. For a brief moment, thoughts of the luxuriousness and spatial vastness of your studio space exploded in my mind, let alone the exhibition hall it will require for viewing!
Then, my left brain did the math: 1.4 meters = 55″ (!)
Returning to planet Earth, I want to say that your work still widens my appreciation of the artists’ craft and inspires me to keep going!
All the best on your exhibition.
Well, what do you know! Oops! : )
I´m changing that rightaway, thanks for telling me. I have a habit of writing things that I THINK i know in English, and sometimes it goes very wrong. 55 feet might be interesting to try, though I doubt I would have the patience to finish a piece like that…
The little piece of your painting is so tantalizing–I hope you show the whole thing eventually. The range of values and textures in this little section is quite wonderful. Thank you for showing us how you create the repeating patterns. I love this addition to your artwork. Would you mind if I used this technique to decorate my sketchbook pages?
Thank you, Janene. I will show the whole thing, but not until the exhibition starts. Of course I don´t mind if you use this in your sketchbooks – I´m all for More Stencils to the People! : )
This is really nice. Can’t wait to see the finished piece.
This looks really interesting Nina. What material do you use to make the stencils from?
I use transparencies, the kind you use on overhead projectors. They are reasonably cheap, thin and easy to cut.
That’s a large watercolor painting even at 55″. I don’t know why we don’t switch either. They keep saying people wouldn’t be able to figure it out but all the kids are learning metrics in school and artist’s and knitters and more use it in their craft which means we are using two systems. My husband just remarked that one part on his car has both metric and inches on the same piece and that just means double the tools you have to buy – oh, maybe that’s what is really behind it all – good ol’ capitalism! Oh dear, didn’t mean to rant.