Missed another day

I can't seem to catch up with myself since I came back from holiday.  I planned a quiet day yesterday, but it didn't turn out like that as I had work to get ready for an East Riding Artist exhibition.  Today I have to take it to the venue, so another day broken up - it's also Slimming World this morning, and I have to call in at the framers for the next exhibition's work.  That exhibition has to be in next Sunday!

Anyway, I did get a little work done yesterday and Sunday.  I am trying out working on some small canvasses I bought last year and never used.  They are tiny, 5 x 7 inch.  I bought a pack of canvas boards and a pack of shallow stretched canvasses.  I am finding them very fiddly.

stage 1, painted background

I painted the backgrounds first with acrylic inks.  Some I added salt to make a bubble texture, and some I just sprayed with water.  The one above came out particularly well.  I could use it this way up and have an orange sky, which I love, or I could turn it around and have a beach with a stormy sky.

stage 2, collage added and windows painted

On most of the canvasses I am adding collage to some degree, although one or two I have just painted.  The one above is mostly collage.  The next stage is the very fiddly stage of painting in the window bars, and chimney pots, on the houses, adding masts and other bits and pieces to the boats.  I may add a beach umbrella or three.

These are not giving me the same feeling as the free-flowing landscapes on the watercolour paper.  I am finding them fiddly and frustrating.  There are five or six of each type of canvas, and I am going to get them finished and out of the way.  I may then try a similar imagery on watercolour paper.

I haven't got back to the compositional exercises I was doing, and doubt if I will in the near future.  Sometimes you just have to let plans go.