I need to take some pictures of my completed Sedna painting to post here.

I used to have some ‘during’ photos up on my Instagram, but you may have noticed that I no longer have any photos published on that platform anymore. That process took a long while to achieve–you can’t delete all your photos at one time. You can delete one hundred at a go. Then, maybe it was my phone, I would have to wait … a while … before I could delete another hundred. Some days I would delete several hundred a day. Other days if I remembered I would delete at least a hundred. It took a couple weeks to completely clear out my feed.

Quick side note here: I still have my Instagram account–because I follow a lot of people on Instagram and I want to continue to do that. I have a TikTok account and a Tumblr account for the same reasons. I may never post on those platforms, but I follow a lot of people.

Back to my Sedna piece. I have pulled what I called my Shiloh Sophia “Strength” piece — because I cannot remember what the year-long course I took to create this piece was called. It’s written on the back of the ‘canvas’, but I didn’t look when I pulled Her off the wall. Keep in mind, my ‘canvas’ is a four-foot by two-foot birch wood panel.

My Sedna piece is a bit smaller. Maybe two-foot by three-foot. This is stretched canvas. It is a reclaimed canvas. It was a nice abstract artwork on a handmade hand-stretched canvas that we found at a thrift store. I think I painted three or four different backgrounds, used a bunch of stencils and modeling paste, all sorts of things before Sedna claimed the canvas.

The one thing I love about this, and I am not sure it will show up in a photo when I do remember to post one, is how amazing the seal looks when the light hits it. When I look at the canvas before the light hits it, the seal looks dull and one-note–which I know is not how I painted her. Then I flip the light switch and this seal just lights up. I glazed her with a thin coat of bronze paint…and the spots and markings of the seal show up in the light, where without the light those details all seem lost.

I am proud of myself though for finishing this piece. I think I worked on Sedna, off and on, for over four years, if not longer. So it feels amazing to have finished Her, sealed her, and hung Her up on the wall to stand as my guide for the coming seasons.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below.