A Perfect Day...Mostly

Another lovely day - great for painting...and smoothies!  I love living in strawberry country!

"Look Mom!  I've only been working 1 minute and I've already got paint on me!"
It was nice to have company in the studio today!

After a morning trip to the grocery store, various around-the-house "to do" stuff, I was beginning to think that I wouldn't get much painting done.  By the time I got out there it was after lunch!  When I finally did get out there, I was quickly joined by two other family artists.

A good start - more to do...

It's alreay Thursday!  What made me think I might actually get 2 paintings done this week?  At least this one did flow once I got started - I was able to get paint on the entire canvas fairly quickly.  What you see above seems pretty far along, but there are still layers to be added, details to be refined, problems to fix...I always notice more problems once I photograph a project.  I'm cringing as I type.  If only I had all of tomorrow to paint.  But, we're off to see a matinee of Robin Hood at Cal Poly's Performing Arts Center.  That will be fun, too.  Hopefully, I will be able to finish it before we start back to school on Monday, though.

Working Out the Kinks...

Well, lots to tell today.  First of all, I did a phone interview with the Santa Maria Sun last week (a local weekly paper) and it is in this week's issue!  Exciting stuff for me - you can check it out here.

Secondly, I was pretty frustrated with yesterday's progress - or lack thereof.  I didn't really have the time that's needed to spend on the strawberry girl, so I had to leave her in a pretty poor state - I hate to walk away from something without some degree of resolution.  Then, this morning we ended our history study of the Renaissance for the school year with a biography DVD on Michelangelo.  To see his amazing work and then go out to the garage to my mural was rather humbling as an artist.

Anyway, I am happy to say that I was able to solve - or at least improve - several issues on the strawberry panel today.  I fixed skin tones, proportions, and adjusted contrast (particularly the background wave vs. figure's skin tone).  I spent a lot of time trying to get her arms and hands in believable positions - grrrrrr. I worked on the flowers and strawberries, but there is work to be done there still - in this case, I need to tone down the contrast and have the seeds blend in a bit more.

One of my favorite details today is the hair - I gave her some curls and I like the color (I thought the strawberry girl should have red hair).

Slow Progress

I wasn't feeling well over the last several days, so there's little progress to report on.  I did, however, start on the Strawberry Girl, laying down some base colors.

There's still a good amount of work to do on her, but she's started.  I wish I had used a specific model - it would save time in detemining certain angles, shadows, etc.  Of course, finding a gigantic strawberry for the model to hold might be a challenge...

Strawberry Princess

Since I was wiped out from a painting marathon yesterday, I relaxed most of the day after church and watched bad movies (you'd think a 3-day weekend would offer up some better options).

Anyway, I did venture out to the garage for a few hours and worked on a study for the strawberry girl.  She's the only major player in the mural that still had a lot to be developed.  Like the chef, it's a small study and the details are somewhat limited by its size.  Still, a lot of issues are resolved in the process.