The Evolution of an Abstract Painting

This all started because I have some friends that are married to each other that have different tastes in art. We sat down one day and she told me what things they have in common in their art preferences and who were some artists that they liked their work.  I took it upon myself to try to create the perfect piece that they would both like based on her description. This was not a commission just a challenge to myself. 

Then I didn't think much else about it until I was cleaning out my storeroom and came upon this print on hardboard that I no longer had room for. I measured it and found it was the exact size that IF they purchased a piece of art it would be this size. 

So as my whole premise of making art is to use up things destined for the landfill and turn them into new treasures. I thought this would be the perfect substrate. 

First I gessoed the whole board. Then added pages from an old engineering textbook to give it some interest and depth. Added some bright colors over that. 

Then took gesso and some muted colors and knocked back the intensity. 

Started adding some more interest with joss papers and stenciled dots. 

More layers with white fluffy cloud like shapes. Some liquid acrylics that I let drip. 

Added back in some brighter colors. 

This is a very different kind of painting than I am used to painting. It's always hard to know when you are finished but with an abstract I think it's even harder to know. After many layers. I just sat with it like this for a week or two and was satisfied so I called it done and painted a layer of matte medium over it. I named it Heaven and Earth as that is what it reminds me of. I have entered this in a fundraiser for The Women's and Children's Alliance. The theme was Metamorphosis and I thought this fit perfectly. My friend that inspired this experiment has no idea I even painted this. Can't wait to see what they think. But my ego is not hanging on that as I know I like it and it gave me a new piece for the fundraiser.