Butterfly Hearts

This is the latest addition to my art projects entitled "Butterfly Hearts". This is an Acrylic painting using Gesso to emboss some areas that I want to emphasize in my painting. It basically tells a story of someone's heart that grows like leafs on a tree, and when there is heartbreak or sorrow, it falls to the ground like leafs from a tree, but the wind (maybe a new found love) will pick it up and it will rise into the air (love is in the air) and fly like a butterfly again some day.


Here is the first step:


I painted a background using white acrylic paint and then on top of that I added some Acrylic Gesso to emboss or emphasize the areas that I want to raise from the canvas.

For now it will look dull. But as soon as we start adding color to it, it all becomes a different story! More to follow as I progress...


Second Step:


Here I have used a mixture of Titanium White, Blue Lake and Phthalo Blue to do the sky section and added Burnt Sienna at the bottem section to ad a brown texture for the ground area. Looks must better now, doesn't it?

Third Step:


Now I start painting the hearts. I mix some red, black and white in different shades and paint them in a way that they reflect a light source from the left with a dark side to the right. You first do the darker side and then then the lighter side. Once I apply some paint, I use a dry brush immediately afterwards to do the blending with by quickly but lightly brushing over the edge of the wet paint towards the side that I want it to become lighter.


After I painted all the hearts I added a mixture of yellow, blue and brown to create the tree colors. Then I started with the butterfly. I first use a mixture of white, blue, and red to create the first layer of color. After that dried I started adding areas of white to put some emphases on them and then yellow to really let the butterfly stand out.


And finally I added some black outlines to all the hearts and the butterfly to bring them out a little more against the background. And here is the final version: