The Finished Painting!
As promised, I’m sharing the final stages in the creation of this village sketch painting from last month. After planting the geranium in a feta tin on the left side of the door, I began working around the edges of the painting using some of my favourite tools & supplies – a plastic doily, foam kneeling mat, a white church candle and delicious, Golden brand fluid acrylics!
Working back and forth, I gradually built up the pattern and colour around the edges, balancing it as I went along, with the central imagery. A few elements were changed completely at this stage, such as the shadow area on the right, which was adjusted to add more interest. Painting alternately with thin washes of transparent acrylic colour and opaque white, more textures emerged as the layers were built up.
At this point the painting could possibly have been ‘finished’. However, I really wanted to add another dimension to suggest the passing of time and to create additional layering, so out came my lovely stash of Greek text! Using an acrylic transfer technique, scraps of text were carefully applied to three separate areas of the painting! This was a bit of a risk at this stage, as acrylic transfers are not always successful and the process can easily end in tears.
Things went well on this occasion though and I was very happy with the result – beautiful, clear text on top of several layers of paint. Having applied the text …. the next job is of course to blend it in, so it becomes part of the painting. Further layers of paint were applied all around the painting, before I finally called it a day and sealed the painting with a layer or two of matte medium, followed by a transparent UV varnish.
Actually … I had no idea what to call this particular painting so asked on my Facebook Art Page for ideas. It was really interesting reading through all the possibilities and it was pretty tricky choosing from the forty odd suggestions! I finally decided on ‘Midsummer Afternoon in the Village’ which was an adapted combination of a couple of people’s suggestions.
This painting is so fresh, it’s not yet been listed on the website and the original is still available. Please contact me asap if you are interested in giving it a permanent home.
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2 thoughts on “The Finished Painting!”
It reminds me of driving through Petrohori on the way back from Romanos beach to Gialova where is stayed for many years with my late husband and 2 years since. Would love the picture but fear if would be (and deserves to be) too expensive. Well done.
Ah… Petrochori… a very nice area – I love those very flat olive groves on either side of the winding road as you approach the village. I had lunch in that tiny taverna in the middle of the village a few times. Haven’t been over there for a few years now though although the beach is beautiful.. it’s a bit of a drive from here.
The original of ‘Midsummer afternoon in the village’ is for sale at £395 plus shipping. (It measures 60x80cm) and is still available at the moment should you be interested – I still have not added it to the website! We do tend to offer canvas reproductions of many paintings and it’s possible we may offer this painting as prints on paper and/or canvas. The canvas reproductions are really lovely – very high quality printing on cotton canvas. I don’t have specific prices yet as they are worked out by size, but canvas reproductions of this image are likely to start around £75/£99 for the smaller size and go up to around £189 for the large. Would you like me to email you with details when we have worked it out!?