I made a couple of listings for custom landscape paintings on Etsy! This is an experiment for me so we’ll see how it goes. I figure the best way to learn is just to try it, and then edit pricing, shipping policies, etc, depending on how it works. You can check out my shop here.
I’ve been having a lot of fun working on this project. It’s acrylic on canvas, based loosely on a photo I took last spring of apple blossoms against a blue blue sky. I’m usually not as comfortable working with acrylics–I always forget that you can’t mix up a large batch of one color before you need to use it, because it will dry, or that you can’t easily work wet on wet the way you can with oils. I loved acrylics here though. They worked well to create a bright, flat background blue and allow for bright contrasting colors layered on top, without having to wait days (or weeks!) between layers like you would with oils.
They also make it easy to cover up mistakes. I first painted the sky and started adding trees and flowers when I realized I had totally the wrong blue pigment.
But then I painted over everything with a much better blue–this time I mixed ultramarine blue and phthalo blue instead of just using ultramarine. Finally getting the blue just right gave me a ridiculous sense of satisfaction!
Finished painting. I am at peace with the world, and my shade of blue. For the moment!
I took this photo of a winter sunset on my street last year, and this winter I’m turning it into an oil painting. All year round when I’m out walking I take photos of trees, sky, buildings, street scenes, or other subjects that I think I might want to paint someday. I try to take a few photos with slightly different angles and lighting. I dislike exactly copying a photo when I paint, so having a few different images to work from allows me to extrapolate and get the feeling of the scene while helping free me up from trying to create an exact copy.
I’ve still got a ways to go with this one–I’m stuck at that point where I have to decide whether to go for a lot more detail or a lot less detail. And I need to darken up the buildings and create more contrast. But I love the colors, and I just bought a tube of this gorgeous purple which (mixed with a lot of other things) is perfect for the snow on the roof. And it makes me happy.
