"The Sun Rose Behind The Trees"

"The Sun Rose Behind The Trees"

Acrylics and Tar Gel
Birch Panel
24" X 24"

The Sun rises Behind the trees, and the whole scene lights up like they were illuminated with Gold.
In Northern Manitoba along the lakeshore, for the most part, the trees are Poplar and Birch.
They are never so thick that they cannot be walked through but in all tend to be pretty dense.
When looking East one often can see patches of the sky behind them, and the trees while fully grown,

 often have very tall trunks before the branches spread outwards.
The tops of these trees reach for the Sun.
Those that don't get that high die off.
When the Morning Sun appears it casts a glow and enhances the green leaves on the canopy, and highlights the trunks.
It is almost magical.
I hope you can see what I was trying to express in this painting.

"...And then there were Flowers."

"SOLD"

..."And Then there Were Flowers."
Acrylics and Mixed-media on Birch Panel
24" X 24"

I have always loved the muted colours of the Impressionists.
I love abstract works that have wonderful colour.
That being said, I love Art-Deco.
With this painting I have tried to combine all three.

This is a

 multi-media work that took a very long time to complete because there were so many stages to it.

Initially I saw the woman on an Art-Deco site that I frequent.
She was a pen Line drawing in black on white.

 I knew that I wanted to do something with her so I printed her off in order to make a gel 

overlay of her.
(With permission)
Once the overlay dried and I removed the paper backing, I painted in the background of the gel and then

re-applied a few more coats of gel so as to give the image some depth.
The gel of the woman took four days to dry in all before it was workable and able to be removed from the glass substrade.

I then cut her out on the edges, lifted her carefully from the glass,
and rolled her in Parchment paper so it would not stick to itself.

I began working on the panel for a background.
Initially I painted the background all silver.

Paint does not readily adhere to any  metallic background.

My intention was to create a background of soft muted colours that ran together and pooled in some areas.

so after I poured washes  on the panel, and dropped Blue and Ochre spots,
i waited for them to dry a bit.

 I leaned the panel on a block so one edge was much higher than the other and sprayed it all with a fine heavy mist of water so it would drip down taking the colour with it.

When I had the background as I wanted it, I lay it flat and

let it dry.
Then I coated the whole background with an Acrylic Glazing Liquid  (satin)

 and waited for that to dry......

I then added strings of coloured Tar-gel to represent stems and flowers.

and let that dry.

I then over-painted the flowers and adjusted the Ochre tar gel.

I let that dry.

Finally I added the woman to the painting.

I find the end result of this work very pleasing.
There was an enormous amount of time spent waiting for the mediums to dry between each step.
It is a larger work and shows beautifully.


I hope you like it.
~~Kathleen