Artist Monica Faith: Painting / Mosaic / Maze / Aquarium ... all-in-one!

Okay. So. I'm putting out some new paintings for a dentist's office. This was something I hadn't planned to do ... I just fell into it. I chipped a tiny corner off a back tooth and had to find a dentist to fix it because it was sensitive to cold. I spotted a sign for a new dentist office just a couple miles from my home and jotted down the number, called and made an appointment. Come time for my appointment, I walk into a dentist's office that is so new that the freshly painted walls have yet to be decorated. That just won't do! Of COURSE I tell the dentist that I'm an artist. And of COURSE I tell him that it would kill me to walk in and see his office decorated with framed and matted prints versus original art. SUPPORT LIVING ARTISTS! And of COURSE he finds a number of things in my mouth that require a dentist's attention. I knew that going in. So now I'm working to furnish the rooms of his new business, and he's working to give me an award-winning smile. LOVE. IT.

Any-who. At this same time, I'm replacing my daughter where she works while she's vacationing in N.Y.C. I'm also helping my bonus father-in-law with his rental properties (have brushes, will paint, even if it's rental-property-beige). Can you spell o-v-e-r-l-o-a-d? Since Father Time stops for nobody, I go home and take a good look at the paintings in my studio and around my home. The just-for-fun paintings, the trying-a-new-technique paintings, the no-longer-matches-new-décor paintings, and the ever present unfinished projects. The dentist and his right-hand-man who is overseeing the decorating had taken note of a "mosaic" painting that I'd done, so I decide I'll start with something in that style.

So. I grab up a mosaic painting that no longer matched the theme in a children's bath. It was a painting of hummingbirds dipping into flowers for nectar, and it had the mosaic theme I was looking for. The "sky" background was blue, and I didn't want to redo that background so my new painting needed to be something with a blue background. I decided on an aquarium. All dentist's offices need an aquarium, right? And this one would be maintenance-free, added bonus! So at this point I've decided on blue water, a few colorful fish, and to break up the blue I should have the fish swimming in and out of something like sea weed.

First I have to cover up the hummingbirds, so I draw a slash through every line that needs to be readjusted as a "mosaic stone" to avoid the shape of the hummingbirds still being apparent. Then I put a red dot in every "mosaic stone" that is turning from sky to sea weed. At which point I decide to have a little more fun with this. After all, it's going in a dentist's office. We all need our attention diverted when we're in a dentist's chair, right? And we all need something to amuse us while waiting for a doctor/dentist to get to us, right? So I take the dots I'm mapping out for the sea weed and create a maze across the canvas, from top left corner to bottom right corner. One strand of sea weed going all the way across unbroken, and multiple strands of seaweed traveling to dead-ends. And then it was time to paint! I used wrap-around canvas so no framing is necessary, acrylic paints and painting pens. Photos below of the progress and the finished product.

Originally the hummingbirds hadn't been mosaic ... only the background had been painted in "mosaic tiles" ... so I had to go back over the hummingbirds and outline mosaic stones.