Last commission - today’s progress

 I applied the first of many large areas of colour washes but these will take a few hours of drying before it’s safe to put on the next layers.

Final commission First post on progress

 This commission has been sitting on my easel for far too long. It will be the last commission I do. From now on I will paint for shows or just for pleasure. It is a full sheet (22 x 30”) and will be watercolour. It took forever to do the drawing and figure out how to paint the lattice work and shadows under the siding. I was able to do those so that it is finally dark enough to see something on my post here. The green tape around it is holding it onto a backing board while I work on it.

“Maybe Someday” finished

 I finished the painting and got it framed today. It’s ready for submitting for our local art club’s December show. 

Maybe Someday Step 3

 I have finished painting the globe part of the watercolour painting and have cut it out. The rest should go quickly. My next steps include waxing the globe (for protection since it won’t be under glass), using acrylic medium to stick it to a canvas, and then painting the background with a special black acrylic paint containing nanotubules which absorb over 99% of any light that hits it. This will hopefully make it look like the earth is floating in space. After that I’ll put it in a frame, wire it, add the label, and it’s done. I have until the 20th to get it finished, photographed, and ready to be submitted. 

Step 2

 Here is a quick photo of the first light washes going on just to find shapes and areas of colour. It is at a strange angle because it is a dark and dreary day and the shadows from my lighting made me choose this angle. I am matching colours roughly from photos from space and they have to go a lot darker.

Maybe Someday Step 1

 My next painting is for the Porcupine Art Club’s annual show in our local museum. The theme of the show is Kintshugi. It is from the craft of repairing broken valuable ceramics with gold in the cracks showing not only the piece’s history but also making it more beautiful. I decided to paint a possible future when there are no more wars or armed conflicts and the world will be peaceful. I will show the earth floating in space where the countries presently fighting will have peaceful borders shown by gold. 

The most time was spent doing research on where armed fighting was going on. Lists vary so I did the best I could. I also could not show the whole globe so I concentrated on the Africa, Middle East, and Eastern European areas. I have outlined the countries at war in gold and will now start painting the earth without showing the other countries as if there were no borders. 

This is where I am now after a few hours work.

Storm Warning finished

 This is my first serious attempt in doing a loose painting. Which means it’s not photorealistic, more impressionistic. I don’t love it but I had to paint to our art club’s theme. The good part is it only took two days. There is some glare on the corner of the paper because the drying paper warped the stretcher and caused some buckling. I’m not very happy with it but at least I have something to put in the show.