Its beginning to look alot like Christmas...

This is an 8x10 acrylic on stretched canvas painting- A friend commissioned this for her parents' anniversary. This is the church they were married in, which has since burned down. We were working from a few old photographs and meshing a few angles (you can see the photos below on either side of the painting... this is how I normally work). We wanted to soften the colors and the background. It doesn't have to be EXACTLY identical since it isn't there anymore- it granted me a little freedom to romanticize it! Don't we do that in our memories anyway? 

This next painting is MUCH larger- a commission for a similar painting to one a client saw on a wine bottle (I've searched high and low for the talented artist's name to give credit where it's due, but I can't locate it. I even called the winery and no one returned my call) This is 40x40 acrylic on deep-cradled gallery wrapped stretched canvas. I really enjoyed working on this, the large expressive strokes were so much fun!

Lots of layers here. I began with a background wash of a medium brown. Normally my favorite is a raw umber, but for this I used a richer burnt umber mix. I think I'm going to start using a color wash behind all of my paintings before I sketch, it just gives it a cohesive undertone, leaving pops of the same color throughout the painting. It really unifies things.

 Finished here, with a few zoomed in shots so you can see the detail!

Thanks for following, posts will be sporadic until 2013, due to the nature of what I'm working on being predominantly GIFTS at the moment!