A peek into the studio

Since my studio is in my home, I don't do open studio days. I thought it would be fun to show you some images from my studio:

And some photos of the first stages of my newest painting:

First I sketch out the piece with charcoal (you can see the photo I'm working from in the image above)

Then I add matte medium (a clear acrylic) to keep the charcoal from getting the colors muddy. I also define my picture and get rid of any extra lines that I didn't intend to be in the final piece.

Then I start adding color. For the sky, this is the first of many thin layers of either acrylic, gouache, or water color mixed with the matte medium. For the land, I will draw and paint with soft pastels, charcoal, acrylic paint and gouache and will seal it with the matte medium to keep everything from mixing or making the colors muddy.