turning a doodle into art

Last week I shared some of my own personal art that hangs on the wall of our home and I am going to continue with that theme here and there for a couple more weeks to share a little more about what kind of art I create for my own living space.

In the midst of preparing for our new family member we have been organizing and moving things around (I'll show you our progress soon) and my office space has been relocated to our bedroom and I needed a nice big piece of art to hang above my desk to tie the rest of the room together.

I decided to take some of my line drawings of pattern and paint them really big to fit a large canvas. This is what lots of people call doodling but in my humble opinion it is simply drawing. It can be challenging, it takes lots of time, understanding of shape, how to use lines and how best to use space.

I always start with an idea- typically drawn out on a sketchbook page for practice.

And then using a small brush and acrylic paint mixed with a little water, I begin free hand painting my pattern on the canvas that I had painted with a layer of light celery green paint.

I add lots of little details.

Since I wanted more of a line drawing without color I used those tiny details and lines to establish visual interest and dimension.

It takes time, lots and lots of time to work this way with a tiny bush

and patience, lots and lots of patience to fill a large surface.

Over time things start to develop and look like an pattern on the surface.

And when it is finished it is a great piece of art to hang!