Painting is both work and play to me. Sometimes, I struggle with getting the angle of a horse's ear just right, for instance. Other times, I don't get the color I was working on and have to try again - it's all such a learning process! But it's also FUN!

 

I have a big gallery-wrapped canvas that I experiment on. The first painting I did on it was an angel with LOADS of texture in his wings, but it didn't turn out the way I envisioned it. I finally decided just to gesso over it and use it for something else, but first I had to cut down that texture (yup, with an Exacto knife) and get it as smooth as I could. Well, that didn't work as well as it should have, there was SO much texture on that painting! So I added modeling paste (the paint product that creates the texture) to the worst places and got it to a workable texture. Then I gessoed it so it was ready to paint on again when I needed to work out an idea.

 

A few days ago, that canvas got pulled out and I started playing with a new-to-me technique, acrylic pouring. WHAT FUN!!!!!!!!! Of course, I made beginner mistakes since I've never done pouring before, but still, I was pretty happy with the results. My husband says it looks like a map! That's because I forgot to include the blue when I was pouring and added it after the other colors had mixed. The other colors SING! so I did parts of it right! LOL I will do a big one again at some point, but I've gessoed a bunch of 12x12 canvases to play on so I'm not using so much paint as I learn. It was great using this big one (30x24, I think) to get started. I hope I don't feel cramped with the small ones, but I have a lot of fun ideas to do with them (much more than just pouring). I can't wait to get back to them! Watch for them to be available on my website!