I’ve been preparing canvases (stretching, applying gesso and toned grounds) and doing a lot of drawing. I thought Graduation Day was ready for the end game several times but I was wrong. It’s close now. Some things that bothered me have been worked out (no, I won’t tell). Tomorrow, it’s back to drawing.
It’s really overcast today and the studio lights affect tones. It’s either the studio lights or a flash, which would be worse, so the photo isn’t very good. Picnic is 40″ x 56.” It’s oil over acrylic toned ground. The ground is the same as in the painting I finished yesterday, and, as with that painting, the…
I finished Dinner in Trenton this morning. Today’s session was the 20th. Dinner in Trenton is 40″ x 56.” The ground was a little flat; I found myself fighting against it at times. I enjoyed painting the still-life immensely. The arrangement was interesting and sometimes it’s just pure fun to paint accidental effects of light.
This unfinished painting on the easel, Euclid Avenue II, is from my Playhouse Square series. (Euclid Avenue I has a lot more figures and is still in the drawing stage.) The painting is 4′ x 5′ and simply covering it with paint a bit of chore. I’ve already spent a lot of time on it,…
Woman in Purple Boots is 40″ x 50″. No part of the painting is finished; I’m in my second passage through it. This painting is has gone smoothly –so far. The scale is interesting. It’s not so big that just covering it with paint is a chore. But it’s big enough that eight figures, even…
Unfortunately, the overcast skies resulted in a dark photograph of Sunday Parade. The studio’s bank of natural-light lamps washes out the colors in photographs, so I have to make due with this dark photo or none at all. The painting has a long way to go but parts are done; such as the figure on the far…
I had two more painting sessions on Washington Square. I finally got the pigeons in there (can you see all 7 of them*?). Washington Square has a hole in the middle which is supposedly a no-no. Cleveland has a painting by Poussin with the same empty center, and it’s very effective. It took me awhile to…
Grandfather was turned against the wall for a long time; I just didn’t like the direction it was going. Since then I’ve completely altered the background by adding the landscape through the window, and the green curtains. I wanted to make a painting that didn’t look ‘modern.’ I used to think about categories of subject…