Caelum Process

Here are some photos of the process of my creation of "Vita, Anima et Caelum" or "Bios, Breath and Sky".

I began by adding some vegetation with spontaneous strokes.

Building up a shadowy under-layer for the prairies. I discovered some exciting new brush techniques at this stage, and was able to keep applying them later on.

Working a variety of colours into the scene. I wanted to give the impression of a semi-arid zone, close to the badlands, but still a genuine Alberta prairie scene.

The wood-grain had such a beautiful pattern in it; I found it difficult to cover it up with paint. So I decided to trace it out with a few different colors.

After finishing following all the lines in the wood panel, I felt like I had given the sky too many hard contrasts. It was still nowhere close to having a realistic feel, which I hoped it would have in the end. But a joyous deviation for sure...

I spattered white all over the sky with a toothbrush, and added some cloud-forms. However, the resultant confusion between these new clouds and the almost topographical or "paint-by-number" style of the background forced me to make further adjustments.

I went overtop of most of the lines with a wash of blue-purple. There was one particular shape in the original wood-grain that had intrigued me most, which I left open in the middle. I thought it looked like some sort of vortex or celestial gateway, and this excited my imagination.

I created a composition with more clouds, making use of the vast space available in the portion of the panel I had allotted for the sky. The next several days were spent working solely on the barn and vegetation in the lower third of my piece. I painted dandelions, sage, various shrubs and grasses, and also cacti. I covered the barn roof with moss and added a hummingbird emblem on the front.

I continued building up some layers and experimenting with colors in the clouds to balance things out. I also began working on the horses. The next several days would be spent finishing the horses and clouds, and finally taking a good hard look at my creation and deciding:

"I'm finished" (with no small amount of satisfaction).