Blah. This is a 6X6″ experiment. I used ArtBord which is basically an piece of multipurpose hard board a little heavier than mat board with a coat of some sort of sealer on it. I stained it but did nothing else to prep it. And it sucked up paint like nobody’s business.

And all the colors went flat. Looks just like the picture above.

So I played with the photo of the painting in Photoshop and messed with the gamma.

Better, isn’t it? Here they are side by side:

So, back to the proverbial drawing board (or the easel in this case). I’m going to try it again and gesso over the Artbord first as I have done in the past. I’m also going to try it on a tiny canvas I have hanging around the studio although I’m not sure how well I’m going to be able to translate this on a 4X4″ space.

And while I was going for a neutral background, I think either a very dark background or a very light one (whites?) might work better. I think I’m going to get rather sick of holly but on the other hand, I may get really good at painting it.