I don’t have as many photos of the creation of my final piece as I would have liked, this is because I managed to lose myself in the process and when I would realise I had been painting for two hours already it was too late to take before and after pictures. However, I think the photos I do have still show how I went about everything. 

Before painting onto the wood, I wanted to make a few test pieces. This was so I could see how the paint would look on top of the gold and how many layers I would end up needing. 

In these two images I am drawing out the swirls I designed for the bottom and top frame pieces. I wanted to make sure they were all even so I made sure to measure each piece. 

I began by drawing out my design, then painting each individual flower and waiting until they were dry to move onto the vines. Before this project I had only occasionally painted, and never happy with the results. So I was very nervous to see how everything would turn out. 

I realised that the two other frames had insects included in their designs, I decided to paint a butterfly into the first frame. This fitted well with everything as butterflies were originally included in my final plan.

I managed to document the process of the middle frame as I kept reminding myself to take breaks and capture what I was doing as I had forgotten to do so with the second frame all together. 

Painting the middle frame was a lot easier as I had more space for detail and a larger surface to hold onto.

I was full of excitement once each frame was done, I was so pleased with my progress as I felt like you could really see the depth of my research in each design. 

 

However, as my peer pointed out, the top parts of the frames seemed quite empty. I decided that if I had enough time after painting the actual images I would decide on some more symbolic images for the top parts.