Recently, I did a really fun project. A friend was doing a makeover of her little boy's room so that it had a complete dinosaur theme, for his birthday. One of the things she wanted to do was adapt a canvas she had commissioned when he was a baby - a beautiful, peaceful scene with fields, trees, and a hot air balloon. She asked me to paint in some dinosaurs on the rampage in this setting. In total, I painted 6 dinosaurs, but the ones in this blog post are my favourite.
Of course, T Rex had to feature - and I like how he turned out, with the contrast of orange leathery skin with green markings. My next favourite one is the Pteranodon, chasing after the hot air balloon. The canvas had been been painted up using acrylic inks, so I had to do some work to be able to cover these thick, intense colours. First, I had to sketch out the dinosaurs in pencil - then fill in the space with gesso (white) paint. Then I was able to paint on the dinosaurs. Some of the details were worked up using Castell pencils.
You can see the whole canvas below. Each of the dinosaurs were at least A3 size - which gives you a sense of scale - the canvas is huge! Even my husband got involved as it was so large - he helped mask the dinosaur areas in the white gesso, and painted the Ankylosaurus. It looks remarkably like a Welsh dragon, which is appropriate given his roots. It was a really fun project, and it is also an example of how having artistic skill can bond you to your friends in different ways. I'm so delighted that this adapted canvas now hangs in this little boy's room - and in return, we were 'paid' in-kind with a sleepover. Our daughter went to stay the night, and me and my husband were able to have a night away.
