'Shift' doodle
I'd decided to re-do a marker doodle as an acrylic painting in May but hadn't gotten round to starting it, and although I've done 're-do' blogs since then (listed below) I stuck with my original idea. It isn't a straightforward copy of the doodle as the final image has more texture and is more worked.
The first layer simply blocks out the basic shapes and lays down colours. Both shape and colour tends to change and develop as the painting builds. The acrylic paint set I bought was a cheap set but I treated these paints as 'undercoat'. They were such cheap paints that when I tried mixing blue and red to get purple they made brown instead. Poor pigment. As I stood in the art shop investing in a few better quality acrylics I slightly regretted giving my brother a huge bag of tubes a year earlier, thinking I'd never use them. He gave them a good home though and it's good to encourage a little creativity.
The canvas is painted 'in the round', the image continuing over onto its edges so that a frame is unnecessary.
During painting the shapes and surface areas altered, some changed entirely. The doodle had been drawn and coloured with markers on paper and I didn't see the point of attempting to copy that effect with paint on canvas. So flat areas of colour on the doodle became textured areas on the canvas. On top of thick layers of paint I applied washes of acrylic which picked up those various textures. Halfway through playing with paint on the canvas I referred back to the original doodle and began to alter colours closer to the original.
The figures still retain that 'flat' look from the doodle but I'm okay with that. I'm also happy with the amount of working done - it's important to know when to stop before you overwork a piece. I feel the finished canvas reflects enough of the original doodle while developing its own style.
This style of painting is very different to the loose, sometimes impressionistic, landscapes I used to paint in oils thirty years ago. However I've been enjoying the 're-do' challenges I've set myself and really got into this painting after a month of dithering. Once I'd started, memories of painting came back to me as I worked. I'm looking forward to completing more canvases, perhaps not only in acrylics but also in oils.
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