I have determined that my painting style can best be described as slow. There's just no getting around it or sugar coating it. Regardless, I'm just plugging along and trying to keep the joy in it. I found myself trying to turn my workbench into a production line and that was simply not working. The joy was gone, and mistakes were being made. So, slow or not, I'm painting one piece at a time.
I'm actually proud of the attention I pay to the little things. Here's a closeup of the inside of the little flower. All the indents are painted, and details are even applied inside!
I have a bunch of inventory that I purchased at Michael's for Halloween. I had every intention of blowing through all of this stuff and stocking my shop to the gills. **Insert belly laugh here**. Yeah, no. So I'm still on the first piece and that's just the way it is.
I bought this Day of the Dead shadow box on clearance. I want to be totally transparent here. The normal price was probably somewhere around $15. I don't remember exactly, but I'm betting I only paid in the neighborhood of $4. Now, there are people who will say that because I only paid $4 for it, I should reflect that in the finished price. To that, I say no. The price I paid for the raw material doesn't affect how much time and effort goes into painting it. If I had made this entire thing, then the materials cost would be taken into account. If I had to pay full price for any of my unpainted stock, I would never recoup enough to make my shop viable. I also don't think there's any shame in using mass-produced, unpainted stock as your canvas. As long as you're honest about that, I don't see it as a problem.
I've managed to get down all of the base colors and I'm now moving on to details and shading and such. The orange flowers and their leaves are just about done. It took me all day to do just those bits but I'm happy with how they look.
In order to paint all those little spots, I have to use some pretty small brushes. On this particular piece of used mainly, four different ones.
I suppose this contributes to the speed, or lack thereof, that I paint with. That tiny liner brush comes in handy to back around all the raised bits and touch up any sloppy areas.
One problem I'm having with this piece is something I should have noticed when I bought it but didn't. Around all of the details on the skulls there is a groove cut out of the wood. This has turned into a bit of a PITA. Trying to get the pain in there so that everything looks tidy is extremely time consuming. There's definitely going to be a lot of touchups on this one!
I know it won't be finished in time for Halloween and Day of the Dead, but I'm OK with that. I'm having fun painting it, teaching myself new skills and pushing my boundaries. My goal is to finish this up and then move on to some Christmas things that I've had for a couple of years now. I have 2 of each, but I'm painting one at a time. No more production lines for me.
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