Here’s the second painting that I recently finished:
Title: Untitled. I really need to think of titles for these pieces! We’ve been calling it either the bedroom painting or Pete’s painting.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 18″ x 24″
When: April – June 2014
Time to complete: Many hours, but I think it was a total of 4 days that I actually worked on this one.
Purpose: For my husband, and to hang above our bed in our bedroom.
History: I’ve always promised my husband a painting by me, even when we were dating. But finding him something that he wanted a painting of that I thought I could do (and do well) was challenging. It’s taken a really really long time to find something that we were both happy with and that went with our decor.
A few years ago we finally found something we wanted for our room, and I painted it. It hung in our room for awhile, and then I took it down as we redecorated. I ended up giving the painting to some of our friends for their apartment, and Pete was bummed as apparently that was “his” painting. I guess I never realized that that was the painting for him, I just thought it was for our room. I felt really guilty about it, and promised him a new painting.
After a couple months of telling him to choose a subject to paint, he finally chose misty mountains, and this is the end result 🙂
Thought process: The original photograph we found is a very bright blue; our room is a very muted gray blue color, so I knew the color would have to be changed. I did my first layer, and was really pleased with it. When it was dry, I brought it up, and just like the living room painting I did, the color was soooo wrong. Eventually I just painted in our bedroom to get the colors to go, and although the mountains are a little more green than blue, it fits nicely with the colors of our room!
Problems I encountered: Besides getting the color to match, getting the fog to blend nicely with the mountains was a little tricky. I remembered a trick from my college years that I tried, and it just wasn’t working. On my second to last layer, I painted everything on, got frustrated, so I took a brush and lightly brushed back and forth over the whole painting. What that did was just soften up all the edges of the mountains, and it made it look softer and foggier. It worked, and I liked it. On the last layer I just went back and tightened up some areas a little more that got too blended.
Fun tidbits: Painting these mountains was really good practice for when I start working on The Most Epic Painting Ever in a couple weeks! 😀
Favorite part: I love how soft the colors are. Originally I left the sides of the canvas white, but I thought it took away from the painting. I painted them a really dark gray, and it just makes the painting stand out from the wall and just pop. It looks great 🙂
Least favorite part: There are a couple areas I feel could use some tightening up or there are too many brush strokes, but I don’t think I’m ever 100% completely satisfied with any project I complete!
What would you title this piece?
Back to the Drawing Board 
Originally I thought “Waves” because it looks like waves. But why not “Misty Mountains”? Or “Peter’s Misty Mountains” or “Misty Mountains for Pete(r)”? 😉 🙂
GMTA! We originally were thinking something along the lines of “Misty Mountains”, but as we weren’t intentionally going for a Lord of the Rings kind of painting, it hasn’t really stuck. Something along those lines would be nice, though!
“Beyond the fog”! I don’t tend to title any of my pieces of art though!
Oooh, I like that! It reminds me of Lindsey Stirling’s new song “Beyond the Veil,” which is ironic as I listened to her new CD while painting this 🙂
I think the reason why I feel like they need titles is that some of my college professors insisted/strongly suggested we named all of our pieces. I think it’s been beat in my head so many times that I feel like I have to do it. Which I don’t, but trying to not title them just feels weird!
I just kept feeling like the movement of the painting kept me looking beyond the fog. 🙂 And I happen to love her music and that song 🙂
Awesome! I actually have one of her songs set as your ringtone if you ever need to call me 🙂