Hello and happy Wednesday! It’s not spring…yet. However, with the abundance of florals yesterday for Valentine’s Day (note to self, don’t go to Trader Joe’s at 4:30pm on February 14th….what was I thinking???) I’m in the bird, bloom, blossom, petal, branch, all things natural history botanical flora fauna zone. That’s a genre.
I’m also painting BIG. Or I should say bigger. It’s all relative to what you’re accustomed to producing. I’ve had a beautiful large 30×30″ professional artist canvas (as in, too expensive or nice to use..better save it….don’t want to “ruin” it) and I ripped off the plastic this past weekend and dove in. What was I waiting for? I’m the first to say, use the good paint, don’t save supplies for a rainy day, blah blah good advice, good advice later. But we all have our blocks and one of mine is using big canvases. Part of it is space–my studio area has some limitations so there is extra effort involved setting up. There’s the “I don’t want to waste it” factor. Which is so absurd as I write the words but there it is….is it safer to paint fast and loose on small or medium canvases? Is that the appeal of a sketchbook as opposed to an Italian leather journal? Probably.
I’ve painted large before, this isn’t the first canvas, but it’s not that frequent and I’m vowing to make it a regular practice because it made me so darn happy! Happy to play around on the canvas because there was a lot more space! I could get creative with composition…items were bolder when on larger scale! Roses popped. Oranges glowed. Tulips swayed. This whole getting out of the comfort zone thing isn’t so terrible. And you know what I did after I finished? I ordered more 30×30″ canvases. I still feel some caution and uncertainty when approaching the larger white blank canvas but I dove in the next day to another one (different size but also big). Trepidation is still there but I’m allowing curiosity to join us.
Wishing you a happy creative big canvas use the good paint kind of week! xo
“La Grande Flora” 30×30″
