Hearts and Flowers

I wanted to design something a bit different for valentine's day this year and ended up falling back on some of my favorite designs instead. What's new about it is combining them in this way. I'll be outlining them next to add a bit more detail and then I'll be off to my stores to see what I can make out of them.

Detail Views of Heart Painting

Valentine Painting

 I've been working on this off and on for months now but still have a lot to do with it before it will feel finished for me. I'd love to get some comments and second opinions to help me decide when to stop and where to go with it. As I've mentioned before, I get carried away and easily distracted.

White horse with hearts

I just finished this horse and plan to display it at the senior center with the two pink ones as part of the decorations for February. With each horse I improved the design a bit so I feel good about setting this project aside and starting something new.

Finished Hearts Dala Horse

A simple valentine design

Color mixing

The nice thing about working on this design for Valentine's Day is that red is a color that I seldom use. I had 3 different ones in my paintbox and this whole painting has been an opportunity to explore them and all of the other shades that I've been able to mix between them.

Any time that you step away from the things that you normally paint is an opportunity for growth. This time it's just mainly about trying different brushes an brushstrokes to create common and easy shapes.

As you can see by the detail shots it's likely to work out fine on products and beyond that, it's really pleasant to work on. You don't have to think about it too much so you can just relax and enjoy the painting process.

At this point I'm beginning to make peace with reds, enjoy them and may consider adding them to my pallet for other things besides florals which was the only time that I'd ever used them before...except of course when I'd get angry and fling it over other work.

Well, as you can see there's still a lot of work to be done on this so I'll get back to it. Start seeing red, use it, enjoy it. There's a lot to love about painting with it.