Folk Art Peacock Painting

Time and weather have been against me this week.  I did not have a large enough block of time to cover the gazing ball with grout as I had planned to do.  A storm was forecast, so I had to get out and get some things done before snow came.  As it turned out, the storm stayed west of us and we did not get any snow at all.  There is another storm forecast for Wednesday though.

I did manage to find fifteen or twenty minute blocks of time, so I spent them working on my folk art peacock painting.  So here it is, such as it is.  This is my seventh painting ever, and the first one done on a full size canvas board.  All the others were either on paper or on boxes. 

This painting was also an experiment with glass bead medium.  The glass bead medium adds a lot of texture.  Paint looks quite different with this medium, depending on how it is used.  When the glass bead medium is used as a ground, with paint on top of it, the color is much brighter because light is passing through the paint.  If the paint is mixed with the medium, the paint dries a much darker color. For this picture, the paint was mixed in with the medium.  I had to add some colors to brighten the picture because it came out looking too dark.  For this painting I used Ultramarine Blue, Deep Turquoise, Titanium White, Wild Lime Green, Hooker's Green,and Gold. 

I have been watching Joy of Painting with the late Bob Ross on PBS.  On a show this week he said that he estimated that he had painted twenty thousand paintings.  I guess that if you painted every day for decades that could be done.  Perhaps it is just an off the cuff estimate.  At any rate, I'm looking at his work after thousands of paintings, and at my work after only seven paintings.  So I guess, this peacock is not so bad for painting number seven.

I am also posting my weekly picture for the field project.  I am photographing the field near my home to show the changes in the field over the course of an entire year.  It is amazing how quickly things grow once spring arrives.  I'm guessing that some people wonder why I did not just start once the weather started to warm.  I could have, but I enjoy the field year round.  The fallow period is just as much a part of the cycle as the growing season.  There are changes in the field even during the winter, although they are less obvious than the changes in spring.  Even though it has been cold and windy, I still enjoy walking by the field.