February 2, 2022
Black Vase with Flowers is a mixed media piece done on an 8″ x 10″ x 3/4″ wrapped canvas. (That pebbly-looking background is the carpet.) Black Vase’s inauspicious beginning occurred one day when I was cleaning off my brushes. I’d been painting on another canvas, using acrylic paints. I have a problem throwing away leftover paint, so I usually use my brush to mop up the paint from the palette, and then wipe the paint onto a blank canvas. In truth, some of my best backgrounds have occurred that way!
Coming back to this canvas on another day, I decided to paint on a black vase. I added white paint to make it look dimensional. At that point, I had a black vase on a burgundy background, and the idea that the picture needed flowers. After all, it was a vase…. I found the thought of painting the flowers to be daunting, since I really liked the background and didn’t want to mess it up. Instead of painting, I turned to my fabric stash.
