Contemplating the bigness
Makes me just kinda wanna jump into the pond with my blue shirt and blue pants…but the more important task is to get this monster framed. I do my own framing, so I think I know where I’m going with this. I’m just thinking about how the whole shebang is already heavy, and how much heavier it’s going to be with a frame on it…Oh well, I do have a weight bench. Maybe I should start using it.
This pass added ripples to the water. Not a lot, mostly a suggestion.
Another paint pour over the entire canvas, adding a little light bubbly effect around the edges.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t have a permanent photo studio arrangement set up, so depending on what kind of light is coming into the room the colors and contrast may look a little different in spite of Photoshop attempts to correct them. When this painting is complete I will set up my lights, camera and tripod in an otherwise totally dark room and get the correct colors. In the meantime, bear with me. I’m millimeters from finished!
The only realistic rendering of this painting…enjoy it while you can!
Just as in the rest of the Sky Pads series, all of this lovely realistic-looking stuff will soon hide among and behind layers of drippy paint. Before that, however, I will fill in the lines you can see in the background with a general idea of light and shadow that was in the original photo. After that, I can have fun pouring more paint!
It’s been a while since I temporarily disappeared from the blogosphere, but it was for a good reason. I’ve been working my little artist buns off churning out more Sky Pads for the September gallery opening. And, the finish line is in sight!
Here’s an update since the last post. We left off at number 6 completed. Since then I’ve completed 7 through 10 and 11 is waiting in the wings.
Sky Pads 11, initial wash. This is the B-I-G one, 4 feet by 5 feet.
Number 10 invokes my sense of a rainy day. Maybe because that’s what it’s been like around here lately? I think number 11 will have some of that same feel to it, although I can never predict what will present itself as I work through the process. Number 9 is a bit of a throwback to number 1, which I find interesting as I hadn’t really intended to revisit the first painting. It just sort of knocked on the door and then came right on through. I really like how the same colors in both paintings express different moods.
More to come, just as soon as I manage to wrestle 20 square feet onto a painting table…(hint–I can’t use my regular table, it won’t fit.)
OK, I have no video, or even photos, to prove this. But we did rock our world at the horse show yesterday. We’ve tightened up our moves since early June and junked one awkward-looking sequence for something much more elegant. The progress is evident in our highest-ever score (probably never to be equaled again)…and I do have proof of that. To wit: here’s the scoresheet!
The horses and riders…
The score…96.385% in case you can’t read it
The GMO’s (US Dressage Federation Group Membership Organizations) in my area for some reason have never come up with an official Anything Goes Quadrille Musical Freestyle score sheet. So they use the one for Pas de Deux and just scratch that out and write in “Quadrille”. Sloppy looking, but it sure doesn’t change the results! In case you were wondering, a perfect score would be 100%. Our previous high score since inception of the team was 84.615%, which we had considered to be unbeatable until now…
It turns out that the Box Factory paid off a double dividend. The curator of the Gallery at the Inn at Harbor Shores also saw my painting at the MAAC show and thought it would be neat to fill their gallery with 10 of my Sky Pads. We emailed back and forth, I visited the gallery, and the show will open around mid-September.
All of this means that I have to get five more large-scale paintings done in about a month and a half in order to cover their spacious walls. I have four in progress now, so here’s a quick look at the preliminaries. Fortunately I can work on one while I wait for layers on another to dry…
Sky Pads 8–initial color wash
Sky Pads 7–initial color wash
Sky Pads 9–initial color wash
Sky Pads 10–initial color wash
Sky Pads 7–first pass
Sky Pads 8–first pass
Skypads 4
This is the painting that was accepted into the Box Factory for the Arts annual Michiana Area Art Contest. It didn’t win any “awards”, but this one sold! That’s the biggest validation I could expect from a competition/show. I’m happy to let the winners show off their ribbons; I’ll just keep the moolah, thank you.
