Rosie (Knife painting/acrylic)

Rosie is not for sale because it is a direct attempt at copying a demonstration in Walter Foster's book "Oil Painting Techniques" by William F. Powell.  The resemblance is rather faint but the attempt was quite real.  I was practising my knife painting techniques, as my earlier attempts had been either large scale (by my definition) or abstract where precision is not quite such an issue.   I now understand the need to use tiny knives for tiny places, and that wide smearing isn't always the way to go !  The trickiness of adjusting to thick, not yet dry acrylic paint will take some time to become clear to me.  (I was almost shocked to discover that my trusty acrylics were still very wet !  At least this time I didn't make my usual mud, just more pink, as I tried to  put in some Permanent Rose depths for the centre.  I forced myself to learn to like it the way it was.  Finally....) 

There are a lot of flaws in this attempt, accompanied by a lot of learning.  I DO like the blurred  mix of colours for the background, something that I am discovering works well for me.  The cheeriness and gentle treatment seem to suit the idea of a pink rose, too.  Over all I am pleased with this as a first attempt, and am getting ready to try it again, before I manage to forget all that Rosie taught me !