Color Rough

Very rough color study (photoshop) for my new painting based on the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration. I'm starting a new series of paintings for senior studio class, and this is the one I'm most excited about. The animal skulls will be my take on sugar skulls (and will have more decoration and ornamentation on them than what you see in the color rough, I just haven't drawn it in yet). The series is based on native art forms, roughly speaking. I say roughly speaking because Day of the Dead art is not typically considered a native art form as is say aboriginal art or Native American art (which will be the other two in the series).

I'm excited for this series because I'm trying to experiment more with layers. As you can see in this painting I've started the layering process. I used the Mexican cut paper decorations, commonly used in Day of the Dead offrendas as inspiration for the diamond pattern you see in the background of the piece. I first gesso-ed the wood panel, then hand painted the diamond pattern, using a lot of liquin in order to make the paint more transparent. I then applied two layers of watered down gesso over the dried pattern to subdue it. I might add a color glaze over the whole background when I'm done painting all the other elements, but I'm not sure yet.