Luminescence 1: Lotus

Last year was pretty rough all 'round, and at the end of the year, there was an enormous upheaval in my life. I'm still trying to settle from it, though things are getting easier. Most importantly of all, I feel I'm able to create again.

At the end of the year, though I had failed to produce the one painting a month I had set for myself at the beginning of my furlough due to the Covid-19 pandemic (again, giant upheaval), I gave myself the challenge again. For 2021, I will try to create one painting a month.

Though I'm working full time now, with longer hours than I worked previously, I have been able to create a couple of moments here and there to work on my art. I'm really happy to be able to say that I haven't fallen off this challenge in the very first month. That's something.

This painting is small, and the ten others I have planned will be roughly the same size. I'm planning a series, for which this particular piece was an experiment, to ensure that what I envisioned might work. These next few paintings are all going to have a glow-in-the-dark element, which I think is particularly fun.

I'm working in acrylics at the moment, as it's winter, and there isn't enough ventilation in my studio to permit working with oils and the thinners required for oils.

Because this was so small, it took just two sessions, though each session was several hours at a time.

At the beginning of the session - the prepped canvas. This took several layers of paint, as I'm working with not especially good paints at the moment.

The end of session one. I was quite tempted to leave it at this, because I kind of like the mood of the piece.

I put off finishing the painting for a couple of weeks, because I was terrified that I didn't have the skills to pull off what I wanted to do. Still, two weeks later, I bit the bullet and sat down to paint.

I don't hate the final result, though I think it could have been better. It never quite appears on the canvas the way it appears in my mind's eye. Oh well.

The finished piece with the lights on.

The glow-in-the-dark experiment worked about as well as could be expected, though apparently a little dim, so I will be incorporating it into the rest of the Luminescence series, though will be giving it a number of extra layers.

Lotus is spoken for, though if it catches your fancy, I do have it up on both Society 6 and Redbubble if you would like a print of it. They do not, unfortunately, have the glow-in-the-dark element.

Buy Prints

Society 6

Redbubble

I'm looking forward to February's piece. I have the completed image already in my head, and I'm hoping I have the skill to make it look even half as pretty.