I have a love hate relationship with large time consuming projects, like the one above! You get this incredible vision in your mind of a drawing or painting and you're so caught up in the idea of it all. But once you start it you realize how much work you're going to actually put yourself through and you think you're insane for tackling such a thing! But in the end it's worth it! This was one of those projects. The idea was fairly simple, take the world map, cover it in roses and add a gold accent. First, I wanted to do the roses because I love the old vintage floral design and I needed practice with my flower painting skills. The flowers were the easiest part! Basically slap different colours of paint together, which gives them an abstract sort of look as well. The most difficult part of this painting was the gold outline around the map. I have a very steady hand but this was a challenge. I became very frustrated when I had to do the outline over again! I thought it would look alright if I sponged the edges of the painting in gold... It looked terrible! I had to repaint the beige background color and then the gold. Using tape for a straight clean edge didn't work for me. I have no idea why, it must have been the tape, it just bled through and left me with even more touch ups. But, challenges, bad visions, and a little bit of frustration is all part of the art. It's a beautiful ending with a mess of a process. The first thing someone said about this painting was that the world isn't all flowers... Well of course not! The message in this piece is that the world we live in isn't always pretty and perfect, but we need to remember the good in it.
