A Painting For My Mum’s 80th Birthday

Rather can give you an almost daily blow by blow account of the painting I've done for my Mum’s 80th birthday,  I thought I would deliver it to you all in a single post as a fait au complet, outlining the stages I went through before the great unveiling !

Because it was much cheaper I ordered two (one and a spare!) 48” x 36” canvases from  http://www.canvas-store.co.uk/ which arrived within two days of my ordering them, as did the set of Royal & Langnickel acrylic paints (£5.29) from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Langnickel-Colour-Acrylic-Tubes/dp/B001880N9Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365961557&sr=8-1&keywords=Royal+and+Langnickel+acrylic+paint

However, when I went into The Works to get a palette,  I saw this Boldmere starter pack of much larger tubes of acrylic paints for just £7.99,  which was far more economical, and I couldn’t  resist, especially as I now had two canvases to paint.

So armed and stocked up  ….. I set to work ….. sketching the design out roughly first …..

…. and then gradually filling the design in ….. the above only taking me a couple of very chilled hours while listening to Radio 4 on a Saturday afternoon.
And the last three pictures are the final stages which took me another weekend. It’s the detailing that takes the time ….. outlining first in black. then in white Posca pen …. and then painting over again in the places where I thought needed it.
The trouble at this stage was finally deciding when it’s finished  …. because I could have fiddle farted forever, adding a line here and a swirl there, but I am happy with it now (very top picture) ….. all I need to do is find a rather large piece of wrapping paper and ribbon big enough to go round it!