Clouds are Forming

In an earlier post, I gave you a sneak peek of my painting. I had been struggling with this part of my reinvention, mostly due to that pesky voice in my head telling me I would never be good enough to paint anything (other than a wall or four). Through daily affirmations - yes, I go through the 'You are good enough' and 'You can do it' ritual. Don't knock it until you've tried it. If you don't need it, I'm jealous, but it helps me.

[Psychology session over]

Here's what I was starting with:

The canvas had been painted weeks ago...and then it sat. This is a theme with me - when I'm uncertain, I do nothing. I do a lot of nothing ;)

There are all kinds of techniques out there for painting, and since there is no formal art training here, I knew a Van Gogh was out of my league. I really just want to create something with color, and love the paintings in the impasto style. Basically impasto is a heavy-textured and almost 3-D painting.

I saw an artist actually paint this way while on vacation on Mackinac Island a few years ago. She took a painting of a red tulip and made it a yellow sunflower on my request, while I watched - fascinating! Her name is Noel Skiba - check her out. I spoke with her on the phone recently and she is very encouraging of me in my artist infancy. She paints all over the world and is currently in Key West, but comes back to Michigan for the summer art season. She paints commissioned paintings and has the most beautiful art...I just can't say enough about what an impression she's made on me. Here are the paintings I bought her while on Mackinac Island:

GORGEOUS.

Ok, back to me ;)

I was hooked and researched the technique a bit and wonder of wonders...it's a great technique for beginners. And guess what? Van Gogh painted in this style - can we all say serendipity?

So after looking at this little green canvas in my project to-do pile for awhile, it was time. I added a heavy gel medium to the paint to get the chunky effect, and then took a palette knife and spread it on my canvas

and duh. I didn't take any in-progress pics. Too excited and kept going and completely forgot about photos. But basically I put the same type of blobs (artists everywhere are cringing...good thing they don't read my blog) in purple, yellow and aqua in the penciled-in circle.

I took the palette knife and drew the tip back and forth through the paint, creating a striated effect.

See how the peaks in the paint hold? That's the medium. Love that stuff and I actually love the look of the colors all mixed in, but still standing out. Now for the second thoughts...

Should I do more around my 'cloud'? The rest of the canvas looks bare, but I'm afraid to mess with it. Honest opinions please, even if you hate it. It's not everyone's style, but for me, the impasto technique is the coolest look. My hubs likes it, but he says he likes everything I create :)

One last look at it outside in the sun

What do you think? Leave it alone, or continue the paint around the cloud? Or paint another and another and another and stop worrying about it? ;)

Thanks for looking!

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