Every year my friend artist Amanda Evanston hosts #28FebruaryFlowers which is a challenge to paint a floral painting every day for the month of February. I love having a challenge to commit myself to…my OCD makes me incapable of skipping a day….for real. So I’m on board this year. You can hop in at any time! (Click here to see last year’s flowers). 

Here is Day 1-4. I painted all of these on prepared cardboard with acrylic paint. I love painting on cardboard and wood much more than canvas….it’s such a different texture. I cut the pieces myself from cardboard panels and prime them first on both sides with something like Decoart’s Chalky Gesso or any matte spray paint primer I have left over from other projects:

Here is Day 5-8. These four were painted on cradled wood panel. I use mostly Americana Acrylics from Decoart but also some heavier body acrylics from JoSonja Chroma. 

I get the wood panels from several different places…sometimes value packs from Amazon and other times from Cheap Joes. 

Here’s a painting in progress on wood panel:

I love to start my sketches with water-soluble pastels such as Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Pastels or Derwent Intense Ink Blocks that you see in the little tray:

These are the  Caran d’Ache pastels:

These are the Inktense Ink Blocks:

Here is Day 9:

And Day 10. I paint the dots using a textured foam piece and sometimes a stencil:

I’ve been working on some large floral canvases as well. This was a large 36″ x 48″ floral painting I just shipped off:

A mess in progress on my art studio floor:

The start of a few more:

I love the Liquitex Modeling Paste for texture and I apply it in a thin layer onto canvas using a palette knife before starting a painting:

A big announcement! I’ve started to teach some classes at my store. I am a little sporadic at how I schedule them but I did start a page for class times that I will be periodically updating. I only have room for 12 at a time so they do fill up quickly right now. I am also scheduling private groups for workshops and classes so that’s also an option. 

I’ve been slowly listing all my art on Etsy when I get a chance…but it’s also in my store at 120 Main Street in Bryson City. Thanks so much for following along! 

Supply list:

Cradled Wood Panels

Decoart Chalky Gesso

Americana Acrylics

JoSonja Acrylics

Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Pastels

Derwent Intense Ink Blocks

I’ve been pretty busy at the end of September working on a huge mural painting project at YMCA Camp Watia:

When I was asked to paint this mural by Ryan Hove, Director of Camp Watia, I was a little overwhelmed at the enormous scale of the 50 foot wall:

I’ve painted murals in past but they have usually been broken up into smaller segments of room walls. Once I viewed that 50 foot wall as smaller segments it didn’t seem so daunting anymore. The first step was to sketch and paint a small scaled version of the potential mural on paper so I would have an example to work from:

I based the whole design on the view from Waterrock Knob in the Great Smoky Mountains but I had to alter some of the ridge lines to make them fit along the enormous length of the 50 foot wall. Funny, I was at Waterrock Knob last night with my family and took these photos of the sunset and you can see how the light changes so quickly:

The landscape inspired by the summer months:

I used a high quality interior wall paint for this indoor mural. Since it won’t be exposed to the elements or to constant direct sunlight this was the most economical way to mix large quantities of custom colors:

Mixing to get the colors of the mountains just right:

I did change my mind a few time on colors while painting. I always seems to make more work for myself but the colors had to be just right. A small process note….can you see the tree tape on the floor? I divided the mural into 6 different sections so I could keep track of where I was while painting:

I think I painted at least 5,000 tiny evergreen trees! Here’s a short time lapse of those:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Ashley Hackshaw (@lilblueboo) on Sep 12, 2019 at 11:26am PDT

In the final stages of painting:

There’s a gold gnome named Gnomeo that gets hidden around camp during the summer. I painted a tiny one into the mural behind some trees:

Here is a time lapse of the painting process. I only included footage of the actual painting because the mixing of paint would just be boring to watch. I tried to stay out of frame when I was inhaling a sandwich or snickers to re-energize. 

It took me about 35 hours to complete the painting. The mural is so long it’s almost impossible to get a full length photo of so I took a few photos and pasted them together for you below. You can click on the image and it will open up to a larger size in another window:

The mural is located in the lower level of the Glass Lodge the you can see to the left side of this photo:

We love YMCA Camp Watia. Sienna is already signed up for 2 weeks in 2020. It will be her 5th year. Here she is last year at camp:

To learn more about YMCA Camp Watia in the beautiful mountains of Western NC you can click here! Thank you to everyone at Camp Watia that supported and encouraged me along the way! I’m so happy with how it turned out. Now to focus on getting my store opened! I have lights and a floor now…it won’t be long.