My Greatest Art Piece

The above painting took me 50 hours to paint over 10 days.

I took design 2 at my CC and was immediately struck with how intense my teacher Megan Geckler was (show was featured last week in entries). She emphasized how perfect lines and completely opaque made a clean look that would mimic the precision of digital prints if done correctly. Then she gave us our assignment. It was to create a kaleidoscopic image and paint it using only tints tones and shades of 3 colors. First I had to design 1/8 of the kaleidoscope. Once I had a design that I thought I liked I flipped, matched and duplicated the image on photoshop. Then after that was done, I got a print of that image on a 13x 13 square. I then had to transfer the image from the paper to illustration board to paint which meant that I had to cover the back of the paper with graphite and trace the whole image so that the image was on the illustration board now. After all this work I had to mix my colors. I made 11 tints tones and shades of blue, yellow and blue-green. Then came the excruciating part... I had to paint this with the precision and skill that my teacher had so emphasized. I painted with a number 1 brush using layers of opacity to create a full opaque and completely flat no lumpy pieces of paint surface. There were some days where I'd sit down for 9 hours straight and only get a tiny corner done. I would be so grumpy at the end of the day after having sat for 9 hours painting. I would have dreams about me painting this stupid 13 by 13 square. There were some days that I thought that when I finished, I'd most like to light the piece on fire. It was sucking up my life putting all this work into a painting for a deadline it left me achey and frustrated at the end of each session. I finally did finish it though and was one of the only people in my class to actually turn it in on time. The teacher ranted and raved about my fine work and I almost cried because I was so happy to be done and so proud of how beautiful it had turned out. this is the work that I put the most of my energy at a time into and I love it. Its hanging in my room today...I didn't light it on fire.I love it and I'm extremely proud of it.