Desert Royalty

I mentioned in the last post that I had butterfly burnout. I have a number of things that I HAVE to paint but decided to take the time to squeeze in something I WANTED to paint.  If you follow my blog you know that I LOVE to paint so painting anything is good.  So much of what I do are patterns that I have painted before that people like and that sell.  That is great but upon occasion I like to just face a blank canvas and start with a background in colors that strike my fancy at the moment that I apply with a sponge.  Actually before I do that I pick the frame.  When the background is done I place it in the frame and decide the subject.  Sometimes I draw it out on tracing paper first and sometimes I draw straight on the canvas.  In this case I decided on a plane green saguaro (usually I do the colorful ones).  I sketched that on and painted it first.  Then I got busy with other things for a few days.  Last evening I sketched on the rocks and painted them.  I wasn't sure what would come next but knew I wanted something purple.  I put a little purple paint on my pallet and picked up the brush and just went at the canvas without presketching.   I roughed in the flowers then the leaves and finished off the details.  This morning I decided on a prickley pear and sketched it in and painted it then I did the border.  The great thing about working in acrylics is it was dry in a short time and I was able to apply the polycrylic, stick it in the frame and photograph it and here it is!  I decided to title it "Desert Royalty".  Unframed size is slightly over 11X9.  Now I must get back to the HAVE to paintings.