Playing with backgrounds

First of: Happy fathers day to all fathers today!

I am happy to announce that the book:  Incite, Dreams Realized: The Best of Mixed Media has been published!

This is the book that I'm featured in with one painting, and as you can see they chose my artwork for the cover. You can take a sneak peak in it on Amazon.com 

I have not been able to read it myself yet, as my copy of the book was sent to Finland. But I hope to have it in my hands soon!

Studio news:

I have been painting and playing with several backgrounds, but I only have a clear plan for two of them so far. 

First up is a page from my art journal. I liked this design, so I decided to paint it big on canvas.

This is a few acrylic layers in on a 50x50cm canvas. Of course it can never be totally the same when transferring a design from a A4 journal to a much bigger canvas, but I thought that the Heron needed to be painted a little bigger to do justice to its beautiful feathers. I have many more layers to go before I start on the heron. I want the silhouettes of the swans to become just right, and I need to figure out just how I am going to create the 'drawing' of the archipelago in the upper corner. Also the single sheet of music feels a little small in this stage, so maybe I will have to add some more before continuing painting. More updates on this soon!

This is also a 50x50cm canvas, and for this one I have planned an Ural Owl. It is quite somber in colors, only thin acrylic layers of blues and browns. I am trying for a more 3D look here, and I want the owl to really 'pop out' when I'm finished. That means that I need the background to stay soft and unfocused, and not too much details in it.

The next bunch of paintings are 30x24 cm canvas boards. I have no idea yet what to do with them. More birds, or maybe flowers. I have a lot of really nice photo closeups of cherry blossoms and roses from the botanical garden, so lets see what I will come up with. All of them are collage with a few layers of acrylic colors.

This background is almost finished, and actually quite nice just as it is. Maybe I should leave it just as an abstract experiment. My favorite colors!

This background is finished, and I am now debating what kind of bird I want on it. I know I want to paint it together with some nice colorful autumn leaves, so I have to see what I find.

This one is waiting for several more layers. 

And the same with this one. I'm not sure if I like the flower pattern, so lets see how much of that will be visible in the finished result.

And then I have been carving some stamps for myself to be used in my art journal. I'm using wood carving tools and big erasers. These are all supposed to be swan silhouettes.

Today we have sun and nice clear air, so I think I will grab my camera and go out and see if I can capture some nice autumn leaves and maybe some birds.