Ready to Hang

Before I head out of the door to go hang our show, I thought I'd share some last minute processes.

I ended up not having to go to my web design class yesterday, so I decided to make one more painting - which I documented so I could share my process for anyone who is interested.

First I start by sketching out what I want to paint on the blank canvas. (I bought pre-gessoed canvas' because I don't have access to the materials needed to build my own - if I had, I would've needed to gesso the canvas first to act as a primer so that your paint doesn't just get absorbed.)





After I had the drawing they way I wanted, I mixed up enough paint to cover the entire background and also to have some left over so that I could go back into it if I needed. The color ended up looking almost the same as my table.



Then, I painted the face and hair..



Followed by the cape - which consists of various shades of green and a few pops of pink. This was a vary tedious process, but I'm happy with how it turned out.



I then went back into the hair and face and added more detail, as well as finishing the mask... and tada..! Done.



Once everything was painted and dry, we needed to put a coating of clear coat over the work. This helps to make the colors pop, giving it more a sheen/wet look. It also helps to protect the paint, making it less likely to fade overtime or scratch off. Typically, you would want to spray this outside because it has a very strong odor and cause serious bodily harm if breathed in too much, (not to mention give you a gnarly head-ache) but as it is about 6 degrees outside, we sprayed the paintings in the basement wearing protective face masks.





I also sprayed my drawings with fixative, which ensures the graphite will not smudge over time, as well as protects it from UV light.

Once everything was dry, we had to screw in eyelets to the back of the paintings and frames and attach wire so that they are ready to hang - speaking of which, I better get going to do just that!