. . . colored inside lines

This painting is loosely based on a picture of a wall of an old building, about 40 x 40". It's very orderly, isn't it? Almost boring, especially after those others that I have shown lately, with the crunchy textures and different colors. I think I wanted to paint something that was a sure thing. . . no risk of having to pitch the canvas when I was done with it. . . no reason to tear it up into strips and make a woven piece. This one is pretty safe, I think; no stress. I've noticed that I have been using blue a lot lately, all different shades, from navy to bright purplish to greenish blue. It's fun to see what shade I can come up with using difference washes. The left side of the painting is a combination of pyrole orange and quinacadrone burnt orange, poured directly onto the canvas and mixed as it was applied. I love the resulting mix of the two paints. The dark brown strip was created using some kind of "antiquing" acrylic from the hardware store I found in the faux finishing department. I thought I would try it out. The background is pretty textured. . . I used the joint compound, but at the advice of the painting guy at the hardware store, I mixed the joint compound with gesso and some white glue. He told me that joint compound was made to go on rigid supports, so I needed to add something to it to make it stick to the canvas better. It works very well, dries a lot quicker than Venetian plaster, and doesn't flake off. It's a lot less expensive than Venetian plaster, too, even with the additives.