I’m having trouble keeping my cool, guys. Like a lot!

Not only am I counting down to the release of my new Galaxy Collection on October 13th, but today is the sneak peek I’ve been dying to share… A whole new and larger format watercolor galaxy—on a huge wood slice!

As you may have caught on, I have a thing for wood slices. My journey into galaxy painting lasted about half a second on paper before I became obsessed with painting on wood surfaces. I guess it’s safe to say it all started when I took my first watercolor class, and my brilliant teacher gave a walk-through of mediums (aka nifty things that help you paint with watercolor). She mentioned watercolor ground, a paste-like substance you can apply to non-watercolor-paper surfaces to create a similar absorbency for your watercolor paint.

It was basically like the heavens opened up with a whole bunch of crazy new ideas I had to try!

First, I tried the galaxy ornaments I brought to last winter’s holiday fairs…but I knew in time I wanted to go larger. This was pushed further in conversations with my next watercolor teacher, who was oh-so-encouraging of the small galaxies I’d painted, but who wanted to see me start thinking of painting bigger than the tiny spaces I kept insisting on.

Thank goodness I finally did. And of course, I skipped right over the paper and jumped straight to jumbo sized wood slices!

So today, I’m super excited to share the first of five of these larger format watercolor-on-wood galaxies that arrive in my shop this Tuesday. The one I’m sharing here is the first of the five created, my initial foray into braving a watercolor galaxy on not only a larger canvas, but a wood one.

Like the others in the set, “Divinity in Blue” is entirely hand painted with professional watercolors on a durable watercolor ground. It’s then treated with several coats of matte fixative, followed by multiple coats of semi-gloss varnish. This combination ultimately resulted in a barely noticeable satin finish over the original painting, which was exactly what I was after. Like all watercolors, there is the option to safely store this piece behind glass—but I wanted to treat it so that it could sit beautifully on a table, on a mantle, or propped up on a bureau.

“Divinity in Blue” is painted on an approximately 8.5″ diameter wood slice—9″ at the widest point, since it’s not perfectly round—and it’s almost a full inch thick. I’ve dubbed this set “the Plate Collection” in-house, since all five are dinner plate sized, and they run between 8″ and 10″ in diameter. Each piece in this set is a one-of-a-kind signed work of art that will be added to my shop this week, alongside the rest of the goodies in my brand new Galaxy Collection.

I hope you’ll join me on Tuesday to see these and all the other new items coming to my shop. If you haven’t already subscribed to my newsletter, be sure to do so asap, as subscribers will have access to a special freebie with purchase in the opening days of this release!

“Divinity in Blue” and the rest of the items in the Galaxy Collection arrive here at Jaded Studios 10/13 at 6 am PST. I’m counting down to the moment I get to share this whole new universe with you! 😀

XO,
Jade

N.B. “Divinity in Blue” and other pieces in the Galaxy Series are available now in The Galaxy Collection.