Acrylic Floral Painting With Pastels

Yes, it is true, a bit less crafting going on around CJM headquarters lately (though still more than anyone else I know) because I have been fighting a little war with acrylic paint and a paintbrush….and let me tell you, it is not so simple to try and realize those dreams of painting real paintings, you know the kind you’d want to hang proudly on your walls, or even sell! Apparently one has to paint 500 paintings to start mastering the paint, so I am working on paper to make it less precious, less expensive, more space friendly and hopefully quicker! My brother told me “real artists don’t worry about these things, just stop making excuses and paint.” Funny guy, not as easy as it sounds, but I’m giving it a run for my money, and if you hang around here for another year or so you may just see the results, and hopefully it’ll be great. If not, then I’ll start making quilts, since I’ve always dreamed of that as well. Or even if the painting adventure does result in some huge gorgeous semi-abstract floral paintings that I’m dreaming of, I think I’m going to need some quilts to complete the look, you know in that large stone house, or white industrial space, either one is just fine, of course a yurt would work too. Enough babble, keep on reading if you are interested in learning how this painting was made……

Okay, so you are interested in how this painting was made, good for you! Knowledge is a great thing, and my friend Amanda Evanston’s online painting workshops are amazing, and will lead you down a path that is creative and fascinating. For something like this, take the class called “Leader Blooms”. That said, this work has an abstract under painting made with layers of acrylic paint. On top of that I drew with chalk pastels, and then sealed the whole thing with fixative.

That is it. Drawing with pastels can bring life to a painting that needs some line work, or you can create something entirely with pastels. I love the combination, and can’t wait to try some more!