oil pastels sketch 1

oil pastel sketch 2

There was a color theme I was trying to convey that was inspired by the children’s book, Sam and the firefly written and illustrated by P.D. Eastman.  Because the story takes place at night, the background color was dark, but it was this hospital green with a contrasting bright yellow for the firefly’s body. For some reason those colors stayed in my mind and it was important to use them. I’m not really sure why yet. P.D.’s illustrations

This  painting took forever to get it just the way I wanted it. At one point I took the canvas outside in the blazing summer sun and let the wax melt and then stripped the oils and primer off. I went over it many times with water wax, (wax that’s boiled with water creates bubbles and circles when applied to the canvas.) gesso and oils. Almost giving up on the whole thing, I just let it sit for a while and then it started to grow on me. My sister now has this in her dinning room and when I saw it again several years later, the picture looked so different, much brighter and more chaotic than I remembered.

on the grass