A Painting in Process ~ Just Like Me I Guess

The last few days I have been working on a few paintings; two for my mom and one for my 8 year old niece.  Last month I visited my younger brother and his family in California.  I had so much fun with my niece Arianna.  Here she is in a shirt I sent her several months ago.     

Her shirt says, "Kindness is My Beauty Secret."

I also sent her a shirt that says, "Every girl is a princess."  She loves that one too.  I decided before I even left Sacramento I wanted to do a princess painting for her.  Here are a few photos of the process of this painting.

I painted the canvas white (over something else in process I didn't like); then added some scrap book paper and a couple of flowers using gesso.  I also used a stencil to add the cute purses.  I then used a knife to add more gesso to tone down some of the color and add more texture.

First several layers

I played with a lot of different ideas and papers in making the castle.  I looked online for some images and ultimately ended up combining the look of several into the one I created.  I thought I wanted a collage look to it; but the more papers I tried the more I realized I wanted the castle to be painted on the canvas.

Some collage paper I ultimately did not use but shows my thought process

I was concerned about being able to draw what I wanted on the canvas, so I used the collage pieces I had created to make a stencil template.  Then I used that to paint the castle onto the piece.  Here it is with a couple of layers of paint.

This is the stencil I created

This piece has been a huge challenge for me.  It has brought out the perfectionist in me and it has layer upon layer upon layer!  Which I LOVE though.  It has truly been a work of heART!

I washed some white over the castle to mute the color; then started adding more details like the castle flags.  I used acrylic glitter paint for the flags.  I also did more acrylic white and pink washing at different points over the whole canvas.

Castle flag blowing

Here are a few more details...

Wish Upon a Star!

Dream Big Dreams Arianna!

Best part about the heart and pearl pin is it belongs to Arianna's Great Grandmother Evelyn

So below is what I thought was the finished piece. As I look at it here though, the castle doesn't look grounded.  So I will look at it some more and decide what to do.  Any thoughts?  I guess you can expect another photo of the actual "finished piece" on another day! 

So I will keep painting and I hope you will too!  Let's continue to feel better and turn painting when depressed into painting because I feel great!