El Fiesta was done in about a week and a half with, of course a lot of work done at home. I took an exceptional amount of time on painting the patterns on all of the clothing and the border of the painting. I spent more time in these areas because the patterns and border required the most detail. I had to layer the acrylic a number of times so that the colors were flat because my patterns were so small. I could not really decide how to go about the border at first because I wanted to pick a color from the similar pallet of green, red and gold so that it was an important part of my painting but not the center of focus. My materials were acrylic and gold leaf. The dimensions of this painting was twelve inches by eighteen inches. I used the acrylic because if I made any mistakes I could fix them later and the acrylic came in handy especially on the last day. I used gold leaf to put focus on to the faces of the Hispanic women. I had a great deal of trouble with the gold leaf. It's so frustrating! I hated how the gold leaf seemed to stick on to everything except the paper. In the end I am happy that I used gold leaf because if I had not the painting would not have had the same effect, there would not be as much focus on the faces of the women. Other than the gold leaf, I did not have many struggles within this painting other than the flowers. When I asked for others' opinions some said add detail and then when I did, other people said it was too much and I wasn't really sure about how to fix it. I'm glad the flowers came out this way because it's detailed and it's not the focus. Overall I think I was successful in demonstrating the theme of art nouveau and I am proud of this painting. An interesting note about this painting is how it got the title. A day before the artwork was due, we critiqued each others paintings so that we could fix them before it was too late. Jessica suggested that it reminded her of a fiesta and it sticked. That title inspired me to make the border have the color of refried beans, and make the women Hispanic.
