An Art Pact

My friend Michelle and I made an art pact this weekend. We’ve both been working hard and writing a lot, and our art pact is a way to make sure we explore another creative outlet besides writing. Both of us paint, and so we agreed that this week we would paint a picture. She’s going to do a watercolor picture, and I’m doing an acrylic.

I used to paint all the time, but for the last couple of years I’ve only been painting craft projects or dabbling on the occasional scrapbook page. I normally paint something that I have taken a picture of. I usually don’t paint the photograph exactly, but choose a piece of it and then add the rest from memory or imagination.

Anyway, since it’s the beginning of nicer weather I decided to paint a picture of hydrangeas that I took last year. The flowers were out on our patio, and they were a beautiful shade of blue/purple. To start the picture, I had to do the background first. It’s hard to see the detail on it, but I was able to paint the floorboards and the sky. This week I’ll be adding the main parts of the flowers and pot. Layer by layer I’ll finish it, but it will take a few days. Each layer needs to be finished before I add the next, and while acrylic dries much faster than oils, it still takes a bit of time.

I’ll post a final picture when I’m done, but thought you might want to see the progress thus far.

Yeah, I know, it’s hard to imagine that this will look like anything at this point. Maybe taking a look at the original picture will help:

I’ll post more as I add some layers. Stay tuned….