The Painter's Progress

As you may recall, I have challenged myself this weekend to getting started on a long-awaited painting for my dining room. Yesterday I looked through some ideas on Pinterest and posted them here. After a lot more deliberation, I decided to go with my gut instinct: this one has been on my mind longer than any of the others and keeps calling out to me whenever I see it.

Love the basic palette, the hand-drawn simplicity and the geometric vibe of this little floral arrangement. It walks a fine line between a realistic interpretation and an abstraction, which is very much my style.

I've loved this painting for months, ever since I pinned it to my Pinterest styling board last summer. What kept me from painting it long ago is its portrait orientation. Given the arrangement in my dining room, my piece needs to be landscape.

So I played around a little bit and adapted the original to suit my purposes like this:

I love the grouping of four, but by adding one more little flower stem on the right side of the composition, varying the angle of its curve and the height of its flower head, I can use the horizontal space to better advantage and add a bit more energy to the layout.

As the fates would have it, when I went in to my dining room to contemplate my choices, I found this little brown strip of cloth lying around. The color of the cloth and the shape of the button reminded me of this flower painting and I considered it a sign. 

Perfect. Decision made and I'm excited. Let the painting begin.

I was out of brown acrylic paint, so off to Michaels. 

Border of white paint around the edge.

For my first go, I mixed colors directly on the canvas and left sections of unblended colors. 

I want the outlines to be natural and less than perfect, so I just eyeballed them.

Interruptions.

If I decide that I don't like the rough patchiness of this layer, I can always touch it up or cover it completely with a second coat. That will be a decision for tomorrow.

Bonus question: Have you ever read The Pilgrim's Progress? Do you love it or does it creep you out?