OH NO! ROCOCO!

Most of us struggle a little, financially, over the festive period. We always end up spending more than we plan to and budgets go out of the window, along with excersise and healthy eating. Its a bit of a spiral, landing you in January with miserable wether and a massive credit card bill that will take the next 6 months to clear. By then, you are starting to brace for the next round of festivities. Ugh! Not to sound too Bah-humbug about it all but its an exhausting circle of spending and with it, we have all gotten far too lazy; dishing out mindless gifts bought in a rush to those we feel we ought to. It was actually getting me down and during a season where we are constantly reminded to feel joy and thanks, I was ready to fight back! 

This year I was going to make as many presents as I could, using the skills at my disposal. I would bake and paint (not in any collaborative smashed together sort of way..)! Delicious cookies for the rellies and for my two sisters, a couple of paintings tailored to their tastes. Mini Me Sister got a trio of portraits of her and her bloke, all dressed up and ready to go out on the town. It took a full day to do properly but was totally worth it. 

The Other One Sister got something slightly different and something I had never tried before, ROCOCO!  She had recently moved into a new place and didn't have anything for her bedroom. I knew immediately I would paint something for her and in the background I could hear my mum saying " blah blah black & white blah blah blah blah rococo design blah blah she's going to try anyway blah blah". DONE. I would get my rococo on!

The canvases I normally work on are fairly large so I am always drawn to those sizes and they don't intimidate me. I had planned on a one canvas piece however, in the store, there was a buy one get one free deal on. Fine, I thought unknowingly, I will do the image split over two giant canvases! Such. A. Fool. Having bought the canvases and some ultra fine black glitter for later in the process, I returned home and instructed husband to bring home a projector from work as I was going to have to project my image onto the canvases in order to get them correct. 

The first bad omen was that husband returned home to tell me all work projectors are mounted on the ceilings of the conference rooms, so no projector for me. I was however, welcome to come into work and use the conference room. So I did that. After sticking numerous bits of paper together in order to get the right size for my canvases, I started work. 60 minutes later and with a very sore arm and neck, I had finished stencilling. 

To my horror, it soon dawned on me (never having thought an entire process through from start to finish in my life) that I would need to now transfer this onto tracing paper in sections and then, re-trace it onto the canvases, being sure the pattern lined up. Needless to say, this was a very painful and long winded process which saw me questioning, not only my logic or the meaning of Christmas, but the meaning of life itself.

 

Once I had transferred the image lines to the canvas I could start the 'fun' part and begin to paint. There was something truly satisfying seeing an image just emerging from the canvas, even more so when its so structured and stark in black and white. I hunched myself over my tabletop easel for three days painting these two large (if ONLY I had thought it all through!) canvases. 

Finally finished and dry - I chose acrylic paint for this process - the edges were painted black and several sections were picked out for 'glittering'. This time I used glue and then dusted the glitter over it, but thanks to a joke the universe likes to play called static, I would be inclined to use a good glitter glue next time as getting rid of the excess glitter was almost impossible. Following a few posts on my facebook page - do feel free to 'like' the page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephanie-Noble/241337365924578) I had a superb response to this piece which was very encouraging and at the very least, if Other One Sister didn't like the pieces, I could definitely sell them to someone.

Other One Sister got her SNoble original all wrapped up on Christmas day and was very pleased with the result, although for a moment all the hard work was lost on her as she thought I had bought them. Pah! One swift look at the back and the SNoble stamp of excellence was apparent.  I think I will do some more Rococo, but not sure how yet as I need to invest in a projector. Not sure H&S in Husband's work would be too happy with my approach...