I took photos of each step of the painting process of my latest "Surreal Saguaro" painting. The first thing I did was to paint the background solid black. Then I drew the saguaro in chalk pencil and then divided it up into random sections. Once that was done I started to fill each area with an undercoat
of white.
I then added color to each section. I lost count of how many different colors I used. Each color took two to three or more coats of paint.
When I had all the sections filled with color I floated a darker shade around the edges of each section.
That was the tedious part. Now the fun begins. I started to decorate each section. The first thing I painted in was a Picasso like face. After that I did the kitten and keyboard. More ideas started to fill my mind. I think the flamingo was next. Then my grand-daughter saw the painting and suggested I put Waldo in it and my son saw it online and said it had to have Darth Vader. We watched Christmas Story which influenced me to include the leg lamp. The more I painted the more ideas I had. I added dots and trim work as I went along. Here are some close-ups of some of the things that I painted.
When I had all the sections decorated I outlined each section in black.
The last step is the scary part. I always think maybe I shouldn't do it because as you can see the painting above looks pretty good. The only problem is that it looks flat. To give it a 3-D look I paint in the ribs with black then dry brush a white highlight in the center of each rib. I also add some dark shadows in black where needed. It covers some of the detail work but gives the saguaro the dimension it needs. Here is the finished painting.
I hope you enjoyed seeing each step I took to create this painting. I worked on it for a couple of weeks and enjoyed the process. I also enjoyed listening to three great audio books while I was painting.
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