Rounding the Corner...

Well, I've finally made it into panel 5 (and it's turned against the side wall of the garge - hence, turning the corner)! 

Just started mapping out the floor tiles and fixing some proportions.  While the projector was incredibly handy, working from a very small original painting means that little distortions are increased in my tracings - mole hills become mountains.  So, some adjustments to the chef are necessary.  Also, the floor tiles are taking a little bit of time to get a sense of fairly balanced visual perspective without being overly hard-edge and mechanical.  But, I'm enjoying working on something different for a while.

The toasting figures are in a good place for now - I'm content with the direction that they're going.  I was not able to capture much detail in the original proposal because the scale was too small, so I've been making them up as I paint.  I'm not working from any models either - they're basically imaginary composites.  

Back to Work...

After a wonderful Easter Vacation where I was able to spend big chunks of the day working on the mural, an unexpectedly extended trip out of town and the start of schoolwork again makes it feel like I've been away from the mural for a long time.  We found out as we drove into Lancaster (after 4 hours in the Friday downpour) that all the State Cup games had been moved from Saturday to Sunday - soooooo, since we were already there, we ended up staying longer than planned.

Not quite there...but closer.  Photos can help you see
flaws that you didn't notice when you were working on it

Today, I had a full day of CoOp, art classes, mom-taxi, and dinner-making, but I was determined to get out to the garage and at least make some adjustments.  In my last post, I explained how the scale of the toasting figures was a bit on the wimpy side.  So, this evening I figured I'd start reworking the proportions.  Not only did the figures have to change, but so did the barrel.  To understand the changes made, if you look at the male figure, the top point of the hair of the original guy fell just below the jawline of the current guy.  In other words, he gained a whole head in height.

Cheers - his chin's a bit skinny, but I'll fix that...

It's very "cartoon-ish", but I'm just trying to get the shapes the way I want them.  It's not quite there, but it's closer than it was.  And, having to draw this out REALLY made me appreciate the projector I had at the beginning. I was constantly stepping back to see how it actually looked and it made me wonder how Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling - it's not like he could easily take a step back every few minutes to see if the proportions were right.  And, he did not have the luxury of a projector to transfer his design.  My hat is definitely off to those Basilica-painting masters!

Growing and Changing...

There wasn't as much time to work today as I had an art class to teach and we're getting ready to go out of town again.  What I did do today was focus on panel #4 and some changes that I wanted to make. 

Figures are about 1 foot taller than before

The first thing that was bothering me was the scale of the toasting figures.  I like to sit back and observe (analyze) what's in front of me - what I've done and what I have yet to do.  The figures looked fine in the smaller proposal painting, but something didn't seem quite right on the full-size panels.  They seemed kind of wimpy and small.  I felt that they needed to be more of a presence in that panel.  So, part of today's work involved "growing" the figures.  Since I didn't have any mushrooms from Wonderland, I had to redraw them, adding about a foot to their height.  I think it was a good call.

In my original design, the grapes were dark purple (like Concord grapes) and green.  But, with all of the green leaves and veggies, I decided to change the green grapes to red.  This required a field trip to the produce department at the grocery store to study the color of red grapes.  Upon close inspection, there are a lot of colors happening in red grapes - purple, reddish purple, and even green.  I've mixed some color options but, they're not quite right...yet.  So, know that what you see is NOT what you will get.