WIP: The Devil and the Crane Kites

Nearly finished with this painting, it's so massive so it's taken me a while (that and I ran out of vanish :P). This one was slightly damaged though, you can see a bit of a mark to the left above his head. Something has just pushed into the canvas slightly... not really sure how to fix that but am going to do a bit of research today because the same thing happened (but worse) to my angel painting. *sniff* poor little guys.

I think it's like this because the canvas was second hand. It started life as the most hideous of photographic prints. The photo lab where Ten used to work rejected it because it showed the head of a Scottish terrier close up, istead of the view of two of them in a park. So it was just going to get chucked anyway. Because it was a finished surface when I started with it and I paint with A LOT of paint, I'm worried that if I move it around too much it will start to flake. So I'm not taking it to the markets. It's probably too big anyway.

Been experimenting with masking fluid to make the clouds. First I marked out where I wanted the clouds to be with pencil. Then painted the background on, so I could go as crazy as I wanted to with the paints and inks. After everything dried I used a bit of rubber sole and peeled away the masking fluid. Layered on some glass ball medium (for texture) and silver paint, blue ink. Finally outlined in black artline marker.

Still not quite happy with the sun though, needs more depth or something, might try some gold ink lines... don't want to wreck it though so I'll have to be v. careful ;)

See the colourful crane with the tiger strips? It was folded from a James Morrison painting (print). His works are lush, all saturated colours and botannical awesomeness. I've tried to find a link to some of his paintings so you can see what I mean, but it's kind of hard to show you just how gorgeous they are until you see them in person. They're so vivid, just thrumming with colour. Amazing artist.

Here's a tiny example that I found. Will keep looking, because you, dear reader, need to see this man's work.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gertrude.org.au/exhibition_images/02_Morrison,-J.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.gertrude.org.au/exhibition.php%3Fid%3D51&usg=__5Mgyz1OwAIX_pg3SCKZ7niY1bh4=&h=195&w=206&sz=22&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=53hLQAbtaBjDzM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djames%2Bmorrison%2Bartist%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-au%26sa%3DN

Tried a different way of drawing the lines for the kites on too. First I went over them with a .4 artline marker, then traced that line with a .6

It made them a bit more wiggly, which is good. Basically I wanted them to seem as though the were being pulled by the wind, rather than just hanging stationary from the kites. Might need to adjust the angles slightly on the next painting though, not sure if I got it quite right.

Back to painting then, just felt like giving a bit of an update ;)

-Emmeline