Another UFO completed.

My son bought a very large canvas to paint for his home but after a while he decided it was a bit harder to paint the image he wanted than he thought. He was trying to do a landscape of an area in the North West of Western Australia. He had visited the gorges up there and had some photos of his trip that he thought would be good paintings.  He asked me if I would take over the painting so I said yes.

I started by applying gesso over the paint he had already applied. I wasn't sure what he used so it was safer to start again and I wanted white as the first layer to show through the reds and browns. It makes the colours seem more intense later on (in my opinion).  I have not worked on such a large canvas before, it was 1.5m x 1m (5ft x 3.5 ft). I would not choose that size again unless I could do it in a larger room. It was very difficult to step back and look at the painting from a distance. I had to keep taking it out into another room and that was not an easy thing to do.

Difficulties aside I just went for it. I painted a scene using acrylics that I have not tried before and I was very happy with the finished picture. My son loves it and my husband wanted to keep it for ourselves.  I really enjoyed trying something different. This second photo shows the size of the canvas, very large!

Two and a half years ago when I first started this arty journey I would not have thought I could paint anything like this at all. All that practice in my art journal has given my the confidence to try anything. If you are hesitant to start painting or even journaling I say DON'T WAIT. Take any classes you can, even watch free videos on Youtube (there are loads of art lessons there). The ONLY way to improve your skills is to make art as often as you can. If you want to draw people you need to draw at least 100 faces. With each drawing you will see improvement. If it takes longer don't worry about it just keep on drawing and the skill will come. Nobody is born knowing how to draw but some people are given more encouragement when they are younger. The rest of us have somebody who says "What is that a picture of? It's not very good." and then we stop. Imagine if you had been drawing since you were little, you would have years of experience by now. Don't wait another minute....START