bunny up a tree

Today I have no excuses. Today is the day to make something... and make it special. No pressure... you know the drill...

It started like this, but without the paints and other supplies. Imagine a pile of books where the palette is and the lamp moved down onto the table where the paints are. I had all my painting stuff downstairs in what would be our dining room, (except we rarely use it as that or at all), and I realised that I really didn't feel inspired to paint down there. Whether that is a constant thing remains to be seen. Today I thought it best to bring some stuff up where I did feel inspired. When I woke up this morning I was thinking of colour swatches or colour blocks. Over my cup of tea I started imagining a few stripes of a similar hue. The first colours that seemed to jump out at me were the blues. Once I started the stripes seemed a bit, well... meh. So I added a circle.

 

 ...and then a few other shapes and stripes, 

and an oval in the circle...

...which eventually became, well... a BUNNY and the swatches became TREES. The thing I love about the result is that I didn't plan any of it other than a vague idea of strips of colour. I love that the bunny and trees came naturally.

After I was nearly finished I took the above photo. I still had let the painting dry a bit more and remove it from the block of paper. Then I decided to try something I hadn't before (and perhaps was a bit hasty). I varnished it with a poster and watercolour varnish that I bought ages ago for another potential project that I never started (this is the vast back-burner I keep alluding to). It worked almost a treat. One problem was I think I laid it on too thick so it soaked through the paper a bit and left some darker marks. Fortunately, I was able to cut these off and still maintain a decent shape to the paper. Secondly, in my haste I used a fine brush to brush the varnish on, and it kept leaving little hairs that I had to scrape off. Again, just a silly move on my part, but I don't think it affected the final result much (save for that little piece of fuzz I just noticed... hm). The effect of the varnish is really nice though, leaving a nice gloss over the painted bits and a sort of lustre finish over the bare paper. I'm definitely excited about that.

So here's what I'm calling the 'almost final piece'. That's because this photo doesn't really do it justice. I must figure out how to take a decent pic of something like this. I guess I can fall back on different monitors produce different colours anyhow, but to my eye and with my monitor, the colours are SO much more rich and vibrant in reality than on the screen. Never mind. You get the point. The size is roughly 3.75in square, but not a perfect square. I was thinking about putting this up for sale in my shop and/or more like it. Any thoughts? 

I really must get a scanner...

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