This piece is gorgeous.  I really admire your skill! 

In lieu of being academically productive, I’ve made two new oil pastel works:

One:



Two:


They’re both untitled as of now, and unsealed.  Both started as rescued thrift-store art.  The larger one in the gold frame is painted over an ugly “Texas Hold ‘Em” wall hanging that just happened to be in a beautiful frame; the smaller one is over a picture of some garden trowels.  I just gessoed over the old stuff and painted on my new images.  The one in the gold frame is painted in water-soluble oil pastels with a super-limited color palette (8 colors), while the other one was done using a set that contained 32 pastels.

Wow, those are gorgeous!  Good luck with your portfolio!

That's so pretty!!  I want to make one with LED bulbs (maybe on a string?) to cut down on the risk of me forgetting to turn the thing off and having it so close to paper...  but yours is amazing looking, and I definitely think it's better to make something than to buy it from a high-end store.

those are so pretty!! 

That came out looking really cool, and I bet it was very tasty too!  I like how you used a sewer's wheel to trace it...that's ingenious.

I think the stairs/drawers are SO great!  I want to build a loft bed like this one!

This one is inspired by the Death Cab for Cutie song of the same name.  It’s done on a thrift-store canvas that had a little painting of a cowboy and a bear (?) thing on it…again, wasn’t my style but was definitely my price.  Plus, it was stretched SO tightly and is gallery-style, with the staples on the back; it would've been silly not to snap it up!  

I used up some booklets from my vintage sheet music stash (a yellowed concerto and a still-white clarinet piece, both from the 1950’s), two huge sheets of tracing paper, and acrylics/acrylic gels; I then set to work writing out the lyrics to the song.  

I don’t have before pictures, but here’s a closeup of the result:


Here’s the painting in its entirety.


Here it is, from the side.


And here’s a closeup of the sheet music through the tracing paper.


Here’s the process, if you’re interested:
1.  Cut sheet music into strips and adhere in desired pattern onto painting surface (canvas, board, etc.)  Use ModPodge or acrylic gel medium.
2.  Get enough sheets of tracing paper (I used two huge ones) and use Sharpie markers to write whatever you want on it.
3.  Stick the tracing paper onto the sheet music, again using lots of gel-type glue.
4.  Let this dry.  It’ll wrinkle a bit; that’s why you did the writing before you stuck it onto the surface!
5.  Paint whatever you want onto the tracing paper.  I used acrylics that were mixed with medium weight gel in order to increase their transparency, but you could use whatever you want.  Repeat layers as many times as you want.
6.  Paint over the entire thing with your clear gel, and seal it!  Done!

That's beautiful.  I like how you strategically placed it so that you can see it multiple times per day!  And I didn't know that about the dollar store; I'll have to go check one out soon 

That is such a great idea...how long does the fragrance last?