Gloria J Zucaro's "Coastal Light"

Today my oil painting is linked to "A Day Not Wasted" .   The March challenge from professional photographer Lee A Brown is a photograph he took while he and his wife were traveling along the Northern Coast of Ireland.  
I am also linking to The Hoffman Estates Art League.  The president of the League, Sharron Boxenbaum has challenged us to paint with a limited palette of red, blue, yellow and white for our March 6th meeting.  I picked Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Cad Yellow Light and Ultramarine Blue for this painting. 

10" Square Oil on Artist Quality Canvas Panel

$100.00 plus S&H

Click on image to enlarge.

My third link is to the Daily Paintworks challenge for the week of "The Bright Path Challenge".    We are to visualize that which inspires us.  I like the picture I chose for several reasons.  I love the coast with its' panoramic view, its' intense sunlight on the sides of the Church which seems symbolic, the bucolic view of the fields surrounding the old churchyard, the peacefulness of  the whole area.  These are things that feed my soul.

Gloria J Zucaro's "In Honor of "

This post will be linked to Carolyn Dube's Gelli Plate Party and to The Daily Paintworks challenge of the week called "the Something New Challenge".  My theme is called "In Honor Of" because it is about my two grandsons who were both diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the last two years. 

I used several of my newly made Gelli Plate papers(see former blog posts) to make a journal page.  However, this page is not actually in a journal, it is on an oil oil painting on canvas board.  For the Daily Paintworks Challenge I decided to combine many of the mediums I have just started using in the last month, with mediums I have been using through the last year and earlier.  First I gesso over an old(bad!) oil painting.  I then applied some of the papers recently made with the gelli plate as well as a paper from an old shorthand  textbook given to me by Beth at bethbynumarist, and a paper off an Italian cookie.

The oil painting on the left with a puddle of gesso.  The painting on the right covered with the first layer of papers. 

Next I used a stencil from Stencil Girl of Church Windows and heavy Gel medium mixed with Silks Acrylic Glaze applied with a palette knife.  I sprinkled a course gold glitter on while wet.  I wasn't totally pleased with that, so used Copic marker to darken some of the shape of the window frames.  I added wrapping paper trees to symbolize long life, the boys ages when they were diagnosed(3 and 19) a tangled heart surrounding a four-leaf clover to symbolize my older grandsons stay in Ireland for a semester of college, a red cardinal to symbolize my younger grandsons love of Angry Birds, a picture of a child and lost innocence of the hard-knocks in this life, and a badge that tells the birth month of my youngest grandson.

Left is the windows, glitter, and paper cut outs.  Right is a close up of the clover, tangle and a piece of fabric under it.  Below a close up of the "Angry Bird" symbol, the child and trees.