Before going very far, I pulled out my color chart and began mixing small samples of colors that spoke to me. Most eventually found their way into the painting.
©Laurie Pace Graphics One Design 2026
Painting In process
Oil on Canvas SOLD by Laurie Pace
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11
Finding Her in the Paint
I began with an older black-and-white photograph.
It didn't look exactly like the woman who eventually appeared on my canvas, but it gave me somewhere to begin. I had a 24 x 24 canvas in the studio, so that became the size. No great plan. Just a photograph, a square canvas, and charcoal.
Before going very far, I pulled out my color chart and began mixing small samples of colors that spoke to me. Most eventually found their way into the painting.
I had absolutely no idea what the background would become.
My brain kept saying, Make it dark. Follow the photograph. My heart kept saying, COLOR.
I didn't want to bury her in black or reproduce the dark velvet-looking jacket from the photograph. My life is filled with the light and color God has placed in this world, and somehow I wanted that light to find its way into her.
Over the weeks that followed, she changed again and again. I painted. I wiped paint away. I scraped. I covered things I had spent hours creating. Sometimes I simply sat back and studied her. There are 7 process photos on my Website Blog... if you want to see them CLICK HERE.
Nothing was wasted. Every mark counted—even the ones that disappeared beneath another layer.
I've found freedom like this with my horses over the years, but this time there wasn't a horse standing in front of me.
There was a woman. Almost every day I spoke to her.
"What do you need? Where are we going?"
And the answer seemed always to be the same: Rely on what you feel and what you see.
Only during these last days last week, did I begin to see the harmony coming together across the canvas.
Eventually, I knew her name.
Immersed.
Today I'm sharing her journey—but I'm going to make you wait just a little longer to see the entire finished painting.
Because after I put down the brush, I realized that discovering the painting and discovering why I painted her were two different stories.
Tomorrow, You will have the whole Story. Elle Pace
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Laurie Pace, Elle Pace, Immersed, portrait painting, figurative art, oil painting, colorful portrait, painting process, artist process, intuitive painting, women in art, contemporary art, Threads of Grace, Golden Pond Studio, faith and art
Follow the Spirit of the Paint... with Laurie Pace
Laurie is an international artist, her paintings are collected in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, DuBai, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, St Thomas, Romania, Greece, Croatia, and Ecuador.
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