#189 Giraffe 9/8/19

I got rather busy the past few days, knew I should get back to painting something, but wasn't sure what should follow the fish.  I was putzing around with my matboard cutter, figuring out how I could package my paintings so they wouldn't get scratched up.  Transporting them back and forth to the farmer's market, in and out of the cute vintage suitcase is taking a toll.  Came up with a "solution" to using a matboard backing, but allowing the writing on the back to remain visible, while also creating a frame-able option.  Since oil paintings look somewhat silly behind a beveled matboard, I decided to put them in front of a beveled matboard.  I think it creates a somewhat "floating frame" type of thing if you then put the matboard in a shadowbox frame.  So with the one piece of matboard I had laying around I cut seven 8x8inch squares (should have been eight, but I mis-measured one), bevel-cut out the centers (though the bevel isn't really needed) and linen-taped the canvas to the matboard from the back....then slid it into an "archival" clear cellophane wrapper.  Looks professional, I guess....my reservation is that it is missing the tactile sensation of touching the canvas.  And the canvas "on the front" of the matboard just looks a bit wacky to me right now.  I'm hoping it's going to grow on me.

Tonight, while trying to remember the term "floating frame" so I could use it in my "framing suggestions sticker" that I placed on the back of each packaged canvas, I scoured Daily Paintworks, because I knew I had seen the term there somewhere.  I went into the ArtBytes section, and wound up watching a free video that Carol Marine published showing her painting some orange slices.  It was sped up, with music and within 7 or so minutes it was done.  New incentive to paint something!  7 minutes, no problem!  Multiply 7 by 12 or so, and I finished "A Giraffe".  Found him on pinterest - while looking for fish.  It is taken from a vintage animal book.  I doctored the environment a bit, but I liked the spots again, just like my reaction to putting the spots on the fish.  He suddenly became more interesting once I added spots.  He's what I call "impossibly tall".

Packaged Canvas, back-side

Packaged Canvas, front-side

Packaged Canvas in an 8x8 inch Shadowbox Frame