Challenge Yourself by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Life is a challenge, right, I get that, but it’s fun to set up creative challenges for myself. Whether it’s diet, exercise or my art I enjoy the challenge of something new and different. Recently I have started a new way of eating called Keto and believe me it is a challenge! I also completed a 30 paintings in 30 days challenge and was so relieved when I was finished but what a sense of accomplishment to have 30 new paintings that I otherwise would not have done.

"Out of Bali" ©2019 Leada Wood

This is the finished version of the jewelry challenge. I don't use metallic paint for silver or gold, as they look so flat and I don't care for them. Painting is an illusion after all, so it's another challenge to paint metal without using metallic paints. I also used Golden's interference paints, which are utterly luminous and that was a learning curve as well.

Recently at a WTAG meeting we were told to bring a black canvas and a piece of jewelry. In this photo the easel is more colorful than my canvas, but this is only the beginning! I'm not sure the other women at the meeting enjoyed the challenge as much as I did. Oh well, sure beats eating cookies and I thought it was fun!

My personal preference for drawing on a dark surface is white charcoal pencil or some light colored chalk. It rubs away easily and takes the fear of drawing straight on the canvas away. I am still laying in color at this point. I did learn that all black gesso are not created equal and that I have been using one brand that I will not be using again. 

I thought I was finished as I signed my name but with fresh eyes this week, I decided it needed more work. I used Golden's interference colors and they are very hard to photograph but give an iridescence glow to the paint that no other paint can give. I wasn't quite happy with this so I added more highlights, as seen in the first photo, to give it more depth.

You can see the piece of jewelry that was made by M Douglas Walton in the upper right corner that gave me my inspiration for this piece. I may do it again, who knows, only use a square canvas and create it even larger.  It was an entertaining experiment with materials that were new to me and I learned somethings along the way. That's what challenges are for...to learn new things. This is 8x10 in acrylics.