Artist's Date, Week Two: A Geometric Painting

A picture Matthew took of a piece of art he liked inspired this week's "Artist's Date."

The piece was made out of metal, which is far beyond my skill level or current desire to master, but I liked the concept.  I thought about painting a canvas, but the size I wanted was a bit too expensive for my comfort level (at least when something's an experiment), so I bought thick posterboard designed for acrylic paints, purchased the main colors that I wanted (knowing I had a few more colors at home and could probably fill in gaps that way), and started on the project.

Whenever I decide to start on an art project -- and it doesn't matter whether it's quilting, painting, writing, photography, or anything else -- the furry babies decide that they must help. "Oh look," Bunny says to Nora, "Mom has a lot of supplies! I bet she needs our help!"  Nora of course responds by saying, "She's such a good mom, we wouldn't want her to do all this work by herself! Let's help!"  This is what happens:

After I spend a good 15 minutes moving one cat after another and trying to convince Lotus not to walk underneath me as I am moving cats, I start working on the project. I used painter's tape to create the patterns on the board. The 4' square, although cumbersome, helped me create squares and rectangles that had actual straight sides.

By this time in the process the cats were tired. They had worked hard trying to help Mommy.

I used a metallic bronze for the borders between the shapes, so it took three coats (instead of the two coats of paint for each shape), but it's done.

It's not perfect, but it's a first attempt and so that's okay. I think that in the future I'll try this type of thing on canvas with smaller borders.  I also thought of a way that I can do geometric designs on the cheap, but that, I think, will be for next week's Artist's Date.