Mother’s Day 2016

Mother’s Day can be challenging.  My mom sent me a picture a few weeks ago and asked me to create something similar, and I thought, ‘there is no way, that takes a technique I don’t have.’

But I really wanted to do this for her as she does and has always done so much for me.  So I procrastinated.

And was very productive in my procrastination.

Last weekend, I decided I should at least prepare the canvas, so I laid down a super-thick base of gesso to get the tooth out of the canvas and I painted the it black.  And then I procrastinated some more.

Friday night, I was so tired, but I knew I needed to try.  I decided that since I couldn’t do the precise technique used in the painting, I could use a stencil brush to do some stippling and that would blend things nicely wet-in-wet.  Funny story, all the sketching I have done has paid off in learning perspective and I nailed it.

The main part of the painting was complete!

Saturday, I painted in the black of the trees.

This morning I blended and added Thalo Gold for the luminous street lamps.

I am proud as hell of this painting and realized on completion how happy I was to be challenged in this way.  I really didn’t think I could do it and my mom knew I could and asked me to do it for her.

Now, the funny part of this is that I really wanted to give credit to the artist who created the original painting that intrigued my mom and got this whole thing started, but in doing a Google Image Search, it comes up with no artist and for sale at lightinthebox.com.  It felt a little anti-climatic.

Either way, take a minute today to thank your mom for being a challenge.