Acrylic painting on canvas, 30 x 50 cm
This is my most complex physical artwork so far.
It's been a few weeks of work actually (although it didn't feel like work at all, I just love painting <3)
I've painted this one for a special place we discovered in Saranda, Albania. A very cute little cafe/bar/shop, where they also organize boat trips for tourists and sell high quality local products like honey, liquor and soap ... And art!
They have a lot of paintings exhibited on the walls, as well as other hand-crafted things.
I've told the owners that I make art myself and they offered me to exhibit one of my paintings there!
So exciting!! My art displayed at a public place? Where people can actually see it? Awesome!
That inspired me a lot and I decided to paint a piece around the theme bar/cafe, with lots of funny characters drinking, eating and hanging out.
I even took pictures during the process (it really helped that my Mum was very interested in how the painting evolved and always asked me for a photo ^^), but I won't put all of them in here, just the main steps, to not bore you with a photo of every color I added.
I actually started by painting it digitally in procreate (didn't dare to start directly on the canvas, I hadn't done any physical art in years and was afraid to mess it up ^^).
Above you can see the first and second version. Some of the creatures got lost in the process, but who knows, maybe we'll see them again in some other painting :-)
I didn't finish the digital version, I just roughly sketched it out and played with colors. At some point I knew I had to start putting on canvas, although (or because) I was afraid ^^
This is the pencil sketch. That wasn't too scary actually thanks to my eraser ^^
You can see that the proportions did change a little, and even the placement of some of the characters.
We could start a little "Find the Differences" game here! ^^
Alright.
Now comes the scary part: Colors!
I roughly decided where to place which color in the digital version already, but of course on canvas it all looks differently ^^
But I got a lot easier as soon as I had started coloring.
I love the process of physical painting, because you have to be flexible. You can't plan everything and undo the "mistakes", you can just flow and live with the decisions that you make. And sometimes even happy accidents happen and you discover something that you didn't plan before!
I actually like the colors in the finished physical painting much better in the in the digital one!
Almost all the colors in place. I love the warmth and the earthy color shades <3
The acrylic colors I had were actually not that high quality, so I had to put a lot of layers to achieve an even coverage.
But that made me spend more time with the painting and I just love the creation process <3 Painting for me feels almost like not doing anything. It's more like meditation.
It also gave me the option to change the hue or saturation a bit in the process.
Yeah, the background.
I know, usually painting the background is the first thing you do, especially if it's just one plain color like in my piece.
But ... well, I didn't ^^
So I started painting around all those little shapes with a tiny brush ... Until I realized that the color I chose wasn't at all what I wanted! Way too pink!
The color in the first picture above was alright, but I hadn't mixed enough of it and then I messed it up completely and realized it only after I had already painted about half the background ^^
But I managed to fix it, as you can see below:
Here I had also put in some white for the eyes and cigarettes and started with the outlines.
I researched a little about using permanent markers for the outlines, because it is a little difficutlt to use a brush for such exact lines.
I found out that normal permanent markers tend to loose their blackness after a while and turn blue-ish, but that there are acrylic markers which would do the trick.
But as I had been in a small town in Albania at that tim and also only temporarily for a few weeks, I couldn't get my hands on those markers.
But I like a good challenge!
So I cut one of my small brushes to a size that seemed fit and very carefully drew the outlines with it :)
It worked well!
I've spent about 6 weeks with this painting and I had so much fun!
Super happy about how it turned out!
And the best part is that it's actually exhibited! In a public place where people can really see it! So so happy and grateful about it <3
The cafe is callend Vënçë, it's located in the Kodra district of Saranda (If anyone is in the area and interested to visit it, contact me for details).
I will share photos of the place soon :-)
That's gonna be the first thing I'll get as soon as I settle somewhere!
www.anafae.art
<3