Painting on a New Surface

For the Love of Monarchs 6x18 available $125.00

I recently took part in the Academy Art Museum's Art Sale, and while there, a man approached me and asked if I'd be interested in painting a stone for his garden.  It was an interesting idea, and something I had never tried before.  He said he wanted something with monarch butterflies and flowers.  Little did he know he came to the right table - I filled him in on my love of monarchs and all the statistics of their decline and also my feeble attempts to help bring the populations numbers back.

He dropped the stone off to me a couple of days later and filled me in on the purpose of this stone.  He told me the story of how he and his wife had recently lost a set of twins, and about a memorial garden that's in place for those that have lost children.  The theme in the memorial garden is monarchs and he wanted the stone to also serve as a remembrance for the lost twins.

Along with him that day was his daughter - she was so cute! I asked her what her favorite flowers were, and also what colors she would like to see in the painting.  I took notes on her color choices and began thinking of a composition.  I wanted to do a couple of  examples, and let the family choose which one they liked the best.  The painting shown at the top of this page was the first attempt. I used my pastels and UArt pastel paper cut to the size of the stone to put down my ideas.

The finished garden stone

Because the colors in the first painting were very bright and warm, I decided to try the second painting a bit cooler.  I loved how the orange popped against the deep blue and had a calming effect.  I chose to put in 5 butterflies - 1 each for mom, dad, daughter and the twins.  Dad has his wings spread (in protection mode), mom is at the bottom, daughter is to the left and the twins are close together to the right.  The family chose the first painting and I pulled out my acrylics and went to work.  I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to recreate the look of the pastels, but in the end, I think it came out very close. Both pastel paintings are for sale in my Etsy store.  If interested, just click on the title of the painting and you will be taken to the store's site.

Wings Among Weeds pastel 6x18 available $125.00

Both examples side by side