Teach me to fly

I did it! I finished my painting! Wow, never expected it would go so fast when I started this, when was it, three weeks ago or so?

Prepare yourself for a picture-heavy post! If you're in a hurry, you might want to scroll down to see the whole painting at the bottom of this post ;-)

I had a lot of fun playing with small details. I called it "Teach me to fly". Mostly because she's looking with such longing to the bird and I painted this little detail at the end of her hair, just for fun, and in the end I thought it looked like a root that had come loose. Hence: teach me to fly, since she was surrounded by birds anyway ...

The painting went through quite a few stages before ending up like this. Most of the layers went really smooth, but in the end I struggled with a few details.

It helps to leave the painting on the easel so that I can see it every time I walk past. Often it's like this that I can pinpoint what exactly is bothering me.

And then I only need to find a way to fix it ;-)

For those of you that are interested: here's a walk-through of the different stages it went through:

 starting with some collage and some paint marks

 a whole lot of ink and spraying (that's always the fun part!)

 bringing in all kinds of marks, with different "tools"

trying to bring in some contrast with black and white

 not liking it, so a bit more scratching and dripping ....

 needed more blue ...

 And then I kept seeing this body / shoulder, which was all that I was seeing at that point, so I brought it out

 And then I started seeing the rest, first the big bird, then the face and the small bird

 I saw that small bird so clear, but I wasn't sure how to paint it, since  it was so close to her face. So in the end I decided to just make her hair in the shape of the bird. That's artistic freedom, right ;-)

 Hmm, I desperately needed to lighten it up, but how?

 well yes, another bird ... Why not?

 I decided the background needed a lot of quieting down, so I used a lot of white to lighten it up

Now  I needed to bring in some more contrast again ...

The area at the bottom left kept bothering me, and in the end I decided to just get rid of one of the legs (the other one is still there but not so visible on this picture)

So this is the finished painting:

"Teach me to fly"- mixed media on box-canvas - 80x60cm - 31x24 inches

Of course, I also have my weekly sketch to show:

And that's it! Finally ;-) Thanks for staying with me till the end! I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday tomorrow. Hop on over there to view all kinds of artistic creations by people from around the world!

Ending, as usual, with some funnies:-)

As well as the serious ones ...

Thanks for your visit! Enjoy your day, and have a wonderful weekend full of joy! 

See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥