my elephant with gold toes + my pre-birthday celebration sale!

TITLE: Elephant With Gold Toes

this little elephant really touches my heart. i've no idea where he came from. here i was, painting all of these owls, and all of a sudden this elephant appears!

this is how he started. sort of like a casper ghost. 

i'd had this square canvas covered with it's spray painted design since my open art studios event at the start of october! i wasn't too much for that reddish brown color, so i painted in the white ground.

something in me was saying to make him an elephant, so i added that crazy trunk and big ears. then i rounded out the horizon line so it feels a bit more like a circus stage or the edge of the earth (i'm not sure which).

next i gave the background a deep burgandy glaze (thinned down color), so you could still see the spray painted pattern but in a much richer hue.

then i knew he just had to get those gold toes! i used some of my vintage origami paper from my great aunt june's collection to cut out the little half circles. 

and he got GREEN eyes.

a week later (after i'd given my studio a makeover), i was thinking i'd waited too long to finish him. that there was no way i could get back into capturing his spirit that had been drawing me in before. but i got out my ink markers and decorated those gorgeous eyes.

then i had this thought of being in grade school. and i turned one GREEN eye into a BLUE eye.

i remember being in first grade with my strawberry blond hair and my one green and one blue eye. the teacher was trying to teach us something about proportions, so she divided the class based on hair color. she added a red classification to the blond side, just for me. 

then there was the choice of blue or green eyes. there too, i didn't know where to go. and part of me had fun with the idea that i could choose between green and blue-i could be whatever i wanted. but the other part felt a bit lost and out of place-like i didn't belong there. 

i mention this because there's something about painting this elephant that made me think about that day in my first grade classroom. and so, he not only got gold toes, but one beautiful blue and one green eye in celebration of our differences!

i added a gold bubble popping up from his trunk to match his toes, and an origami paper circle at his center.

TITLE: Elephant With Gold Toes

then i thought i was finished and sprawled out across my new studio's floor space and melted beeswax on the painting's surface.

and isn't it ironic, that my iron completely melted away his blue and green eyes! so i had to go in and draw them once again!

and now i am completely in love with my ELEPHANT WITH GOLD TOES!

**************************

TITLE: THINE and THOU TOGETHER. Prints available in my etsy shop.

ps. it's my BIRTHDAY next week! and i'm celebrating with a 2 DAY SHOP SALE! STARTING TOMORROW, all PRINTS are BUY ONE GET ONE FREE! just mention the additional print title you'd like in the note to seller when you make your purchase!

 TITLE: SPEAK YOUR TRUTH by Danielle Fraser

pps. tomorrow is the day for sales! i've been so inspired by danielle's beautiful paintings. and she just so happens to be having a HUGE sale in her shop too!

the sale starts tomorrow and ends on Friday December 10th--40% off on ALL of her ORIGINALS! i really love danielle's artwork and hope you have a chance to stop by her blog and shop and see what she's been up to!