Bison - Gouache Painting

Bison - varnished gouache

I'm still painting away but everything seems to take forever to do!  I'm still working on a collaborative effort between my photographer sister and myself but hope to finish it soon.  My sister took the photo and I'm painting it (in acrylic!  any wonder I'm so slow with it?)  and we hope to show both the photo and the painting at a show in her town in Colorado this coming July.  More about all that later.

In the meantime, I've painted a buffalo or bison for the first time and have to say it surprised me at how it came out.  Another painting that I actually like - maybe I'm finally on a roll!  This has been painted in gouache on a canvas panel.  I gave the panel a couple of extra coats of gesso primer and the texture was really good for painting.  After I finished the painting, I varnished it as usual so it wouldn't have to be framed under glass.  Varnishing a water media painting is a little controversial but is becoming more and more common every day.  The varnish gives life to the colors plus protects the painting from smearing and pollutants in the air.  Since I use several coats of a UV resistant varnish, it also helps protect from UV rays. 

And I have a couple of other paintings sketched out and waiting for their turn on the easel.  I won't say any more than that except it might be a few days before I get to them.

I'm also back to experimenting with the coasters (see THIS blog post) but will write more about that in a future blog post. 

It just seems as if I'm in a creative frenzy these days and don't have enough time and energy to get it all painted, crafted or cleaned!