My Latest Art Project

Hello! Today on Simply Saturday I’ll be sharing my latest art project: a four seasons painting. Let’s get started!

What do I mean by a four seasons painting? Well, I divided this canvas into four sections. Each section (if everything works out like I’m planning 😉 ) will contain a painting using a reference photo from each of the four seasons. The first being, naturally, spring.

I chose this photo for my spring slot in the painting. Daffodils definitely mean spring where I live!

I started by very lightly sketching out most of the outlines of the photo. I used just a regular pencil. It was interesting trying to alter the photo to fit into such a small space. 😉

I then stuck a piece of tape along the right edge of the spring slot, so that I would have a clean line on that side. Then I began to fill in the outlines (roughly, at this stage) with a light shade. I’ve found that starting with a light color is key to giving definition to the painting as you go on. Then you eventually add the middle and darkest shades. (Oh, and by the way, I’ve never taken any painting classes, so this is just what I’ve found works for me. I’m still learning on my own, through trial and error. 😉 )

And here it is with light colors filled in, for the most part (some of them may be a little too dark, but the great thing about painting is that mistakes are pretty easy to cover up.) Now, you may be looking at this photo and thinking, “that looks terrible”. Well, at the moment, you’d be right. 😉 This is only the first step, however. It’s all part of the process.

Oh, and if you’d like to see a recently finished painting of mine, just scroll down!

I made this painting using the technique of adding the colors in steps, with light, then middle, then dark.

And that’s where I am in the process of my latest art project. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more about it as I continue to work on it. Until next time ~ Emily