You Are Right Here

I just wanted to take a minute to show you all what I have been working on this week.  It is a canvas that my niece wanted made for herself and her husband.  She wanted to be reminded that, "You Are Right Where You Should Be," and she wanted to be reminded of it in gray and yellow.
It started as an old map that hung on the bulletin board of his office.  I used gel medium to glue it down to a 2" deep gallery wrapped canvas and guess what, a ginormous spot in the middle didn't adhere...grrr.  So I removed that and put another piece of the map on and, as often happens, while I was smoothing it out, I found "Lake Preston" (my niece's husband is named Preston) and I knew that this was the map for them, which made me feel a little better about having to scrape off the first map. 

In order to save Lake Preston from being painted over, I had to alter my original design a bit but here is the background after several layers.

 I painted stacks of book text and sheet music to hand cut the letters from.

 I also hand cut the petals, stem, and leaf.  I added more layers of paint to the petals after I glued them down and used a script liner and white fluid acrylics to line it.

I added depth to everything with charcoal and a blending stump and when it was all said and done, I applied silver leaf randomly around the edges.  And after all of that I still managed to save Lake Preston.  If you look closely at the point of the leaf, you will find it.
Given my extreme dislike of cold and snow and the fact that I had to march out in it to take the final pictures, it was nice to be reminded that I am right where I should be, even if it is in the cold and snow.  So maybe I'll grumble less about the white stuff today and accept that I am where I'm supposed to be...but just today.