Romania Painting Series – Page 5

My studio day was spent working on the Romania paintings. I approached my studio space and knew I needed a fresh space to work in. I rearranged my studio, moving everything around to make a new space for myself.

View from the window

View from the door

With my fresh space, I put on my audio track, and set up my paintings. My goal for the day was to cover the 13 charcoal sketched canvas in paint. I placed all of the canvas around the room in a line.

I approached my easel and worked on mixing my color palette (oil paint).

When covered in paint, the canvas was moved on top of the drafting table and flat file cabinet. The uncovered canvas would all get to move one space forward in their little line.

I was covered in paint and pretty tired by the end, but it was a job well done!

When I was on the missions trip with Grace Church serving the Livada Orphan Care ministry in Romania, the beauty of the country inspired me.

During one of my morning quiet times with God, I felt like He gave me the idea to paint scenes from Romania to raise money for orphan child sponsorship. It would serve a double purpose to paint the scenes. On one hand, someone would purchase the painting for the suggested donation price or fundraiser auction. On the back end, when the said person looks at the painting, they are encouraged to pray for Livada and the orphans in Romania.

I was originally going to purchase a large canvas roll and stretchers and stretch my own canvas. Though time consuming, stretching canvas is much cheaper than purchasing pre-stretched canvas…unless there is some sort of deal.

On a random day of the week as I was driving home from work, I had a God moment and turned into Michaels. They did indeed have one of these “deals.” There was buy 3 canvas for the price of 1, so I got 15 canvas for the price of 5, which was around $50.

I mixed gesso with acrylic paint and covered each of the canvas. I like to add a color to the white gesso to create a light or mid-tone, so that when I paint I can add lights and darks.

After the canvases dried, I sketched (from photographs) each of the images using willow charcoal. Because I am working with so many images and mostly landscapes I had to have a way of organizing them. I created a list numbering and naming each piece with the canvas size. I put the names on the back of the canvas on the stretcher bar and also on the photograph source.