Surrealism Collage

"Ceaselessly Present"

Acrylic paint on canvas

9" x 12" 

To start this, I based it off my magazine collage. I incorporated the clock aspect of it into this painting. I didn't like my collage, so I wanted this painting to be mostly different.
First, I covered the canvas in black. I soon mixed paint and made rough outlines of shapes I needed to recreate. I then went into further detail, layering over and over as I went. For shapes on the black, I had to paint white where the shape would be, in order to see the paint. I started with the planets (earth and moon), and then the stars. To create the stars I used a small clay tool with tiny metal circles at the end, which I dipped in paint and made individual stars. Finally, I made the clock and the "opening" in the sky. It was hard to be able to make it so you can see the dark blue. I then painted the grandfather clock. I used the same tool with the small points I did the stars wth to make highlights on the clock.
With this project came a couple of challenges. It took me a lot of time and trouble to add the stars with the small tool, and additionally, it was hard for me to make dark colors visible that were layered over black. To overcome this, I had to paint white on the black where new shapes would be.