In our second installment of CANVAS WRAP, we’re going to get the background painted.

I typically paint back to front, so I start by removing acetate pieces to expose the background area, leaving our lady covered for now. Separate the pieces by gently folding the acetate back against the scores to pop the individual pieces apart. If you’ve scored the acetate properly, they will come apart quite easily. If you encounter resistance, take your knife and carefully re-score the lines as needed. Avoid pulling the acetate so as not to distort it. The removed acetate pieces get taped to the studio wall for future use. To make life a bit easier, I position them in place like a large puzzle.

This is a good time to mix some paint. This painting is monochromatic; meaning it’ll appear as a one-color painting when finished. I mix a selection of colors to get the desired blue I’m looking for, but you could paint it any color you want. I wanted a winter-like feeling for this piece, so a dark blue seemed like the obvious choice.

The wall surface that our model is leaning against gets painted first. (Normally, working back to front, I’d paint the sky area first, but in this case I’m painting the wall to establish my darkest values). My first step is to get some color down, so using an Iwata LPH-50 Spray Gun I lightly build up the value to create an even fill of blue. Keep this light as we’ll be adding texture and it’ll be important that it show through. It’s always easier to darken later.