Alternative to wedding flowers..........

This is a post that I am very excited to blog about. My super stylish sister, Suzy, is getting married in approximately 4 weeks time....eekkk! The whole wedding is going to be a little alternative, with a rock and roll festival vibe. She has commissioned me to create two giant canvases with bouquets on them to have displayed in the hall where they are going to be married rather than having real flowers. This way the paintings will be a lasting memory of the day and give it a nice personal touch. They want it in a graffiti style. Sooooo, I've started experimenting today after receiving a big parcel of gorgeous spray paints in the post...yay! I have to admit I have never really used aerosols in my work before....gulp.....but that's what makes it so exciting! The actual canvases are about 100cm by 80cm, but this little canvas I am playing around on is about 30cm by 30cm.

The inspiration:
                                

 

First layer of paint on canvas, (acrylic) ....a little too blue for the final pieces, I think we were thinking more greeny grey.

Using the spray paint...This had to be done mega quickly as it was getting late and starting to get dark. It was really cool using it but I really need to buy a mask tomorrow as it stinks! Well, I kind of like the smell, but I know it's really bad for you and I could taste it afterwards....not good! Also you can see a very rough outline. I think I might have gone a bit overboard with the pink...what can I say, I love shocking pink!

First layer of paint to establish tonal areas:

And another photo using a different instagram filter:

Quite like how its developing, it has definitely been worth trying it out before starting the real ones! It only took a few hours to get it to this stage too which is a relief! (Suzanne if you see this blog.....this is the work at a very early stage and not how I envisage the final outcome!) It needs more drips and dribbles and obviously colour! The colours need to be a bit more pastel too, I think.

Ode to Ms Moss...

Added a tiny bit more colour. This is actually inspired by a photo of Kate Moss. It looks nothing like her, I know, I didn't want it to. I just liked the pose and the mask. It's been interesting working on this as the reference was a quite grainy black and white photo so I have had to use my artistic license with a lot of it. I have noticed before that I often am a bit of a slave to the reality of my references and this can get in the way of developing my art the way I want it to go.  I'm still not sure what background to do, I'm thinking a nice pink at the moment, inspired by a Damien Hirst butterfly painting I saw at his exhibition at the Tate Modern. I love this pink, to me, it's not girly or sickly, it's kind of soft and vintage. I think I might have trouble mixing this colour.



 For Boys and Girls - Damien Hirst