Acrylics are easy

I don't often get time to do anything arty during the day, but since it was throwing it down, I set K up with her fingerpaints, grabbed my little canvasses and we settled down to a companionable afternoon of experimentation. I am really pleased with these - considering I know absolutely nothing about painting, I'm thrilled as to how they've come out just by doing simple washes of colour. Obviously they're quite derivative - there's a lot of this stuff around in the home furnishing shops at the moment - but it really vindicates my "small aubergine" complex, doesn't it!

I plan to experiment a little further on the two very simple washes (leftmost pair) by using silver and gold gutta paint to give a raised, textured surface. Not quite sure what form that will take at the moment; I saw a really nice one the other day of just a skeletal dandelion head in silver on a dark background and that's the sort of thing I'll try for. I'm very pleased with the third-from-left picture - I had no idea what I was doing whilst painting it, but I think it looks like a clip of an angel's wing or a section of a faerie's dress, so that's quite inspiring and it makes me wonder what I could achieve on a larger canvas. Actually it reminds me also of the Ace of Cups in the Haindl Tarot; the right-most image could easily be incorporated into a Wheel of Fortune too...now that would be a big project! I don't think I have room for 78 canvasses, even the little ones...

Speaking of canvas, I've discovered there's a branch of The Works over at Middlebrook near where I teach on Saturdays, so I will be going to get some bigger canvas and more paints tomorrow to do the pictures for our bedroom I mentioned a few entries ago.