Oh I do love a huge canvas and I do love a background AND I do love finding the images hidden in the swirls and texture that a background inherently contains.

Here’s where I started … just a rough slapping in of paint. I’d done the dark background ages ago and don’t have a pic (I’m a slacker). After that dried a bit I came back through with the oranges and the yellows and just scraped them on with my palette knife.

Then I went back through with a gloved hand and worked the wet paint (which did reactivate some of the under layer … as rubbing will do until It’s fully cured). I like this pillowy dream effect.

But then I saw them! Right there in the painting the whole time.

The heffalumps!!! I roughed them in yesterday with some raw umber once I felt the orange/yellow was dry enough. Lord knows what I will do next but they are kinda sweet.

Update – 02/05/2022

I really tried to like these haffalumps, I REALLY did.  But ultimately they just weren’t doing it for me.  So I went all in with zinc white and a few different shades of red and … voila`pepto bismol pink EVERYWHERE.

And somehow I really liked it, but wanted to push the really bright/white heavy pinks down just a little bit. 

Raw umber, some naples yellow and cadmium light yellow did the trick.  I really enjoyed the presentation at this stage but wasn’t entirely convinced it was done.  Just a few weeks ago I hung it over my bed to see how I liked it in a furnished space.

It’s definitely done.  I’d like to get some better lights for it but I adore it there and may just keep it forever!