Contemporary Painting

My final painting is a rectangle with many bright greens, oranges, blues, and pinks. The underpainting is pink and is peaking through the layers above. A light blue dog is in the center of the canvas, standing in a pool of water. The water is rippling around her, creating waves in the background. In the foreground, there are small heaps of grass and moss, with small trees branching upwards towards the top of the canvas. The grass is a bright green, with a deeper green layered on top.

I created my artwork using acrylic paints and canvas but sketched out my design with charcoal. I used large brushes to loosely put down the color, adding layers as I went. I used the smallest brushes and the most detail on the dog’s face, for emphasis. I tried to be more forgiving with my brushstrokes and tried not to spend too much time on one area of the painting, working on the big picture rather than tiny details.

My artwork is inspired by Maine Artist, Dean McCrillis, who uses similar colors and subject matter in his work, but instead of doing a random animal, I chose to paint my dog. This is because I wanted to paint something I cared about, and I knew I’d put effort into it. It’s more than just an assignment now, it genuinely means something to me, especially as my dog gets older. I tried to have positive emotions like love and happiness linked with the colors I used because that’s how I see my dog. 

Some of my goals as an artist are to paint more loosely and stop stressing about the little things, as well as work with more animals as my subjects. This piece helped me work towards both of these goals because I got to paint an animal, as well as follow an art style that I’m not used to. 

I learned how to utilize underpainting in my works, as well as how to stretch and prep a canvas. These are important skills as an artist, and I’m glad I got to learn how to do that. The piece isn’t exactly how I imagined it, but I’m pretty happy with the outcome regardless. I think in the future I’ll use my knowledge from this project in prepping canvas and using underpainting to bring life to my works.