Challenging my boundaries

I've been taking online courses for the past few months, to expand my limited knowledge of all things paint and art. It's been quite fun. Sitting at the computer, watching videos of artists, reading information. What's that? No painting? Oh you noticed that ,did you? No, no painting. I have paint, really I do. I bought some last summer when I started to buy the courses, and check into the supplies lists, and then they just sat there. I was afraid to work with acrylics. Primarily because I haven't ever painted before, and you know what they say about being afraid of the unknown.

What if I ruined a canvas? What if I used up a lot of paint and hated it? I can't draw; what makes me think I can paint? And then Julie Prichard's course Act Natural was released and I found a course where I felt safe enough to try. The techniques are not meant to build on one another, but to be used with other techniques or on their own. So I didn't have to worry about getting started on Lesson 1 and not being able to complete my project by Lesson 9. I could just use one lesson on a project, and see how it went and move on. I liked that. So I did my first lesson, my collage canvas. And this weekend I tried out actually painting layers and glazes and seeing how it went.

And I loved it. I could try a few things and set it aside to dry without thinking about needing to do the next step. Heck I didn't even know what the next step was. That was the beauty of it. Sit in front of the painting after it dried and just feel it out, try something else, let it see where it takes me. 

And after a couple of days of painting, doing my first image transfer, some glazes, mixing colours for the first time, I can honestly say I'm pretty happy with the results.

So today I went to the art store and picked up some different paints to make the most arduous part of the project, the mixing, a little easier. I can't wait to try this out on larger canvases. This is a 12 inch by 12 inch canvas, but I'm ready to move onto something bigger. I think.