Church Street canvas shaping up

After a couple of days work, making a little more progress on the Church Street canvas. At least getting the major areas of color laid out. I still need to print out a swatch from the sofa, because I intend to use either that color or something complimentary in the big umbrella in the foreground. You can see the paint chip hanging from the top of the canvas, the lightest color "Litchefield Grey" is the wall color, so I'm working the steeple and probably the foreground sidewalk to be of like color. I came pretty close mixing up the color and painted some right on the chip, it was sooo close. I've added a couple of new figures in the distance, a father and son holding hands and walking towards the back. The boy is about one step behind father, and I've tried to shape the father's head so that it looks like he's talking about something to the right and the boy looks in that direction. It's not too hard to create gestural emphasis on figures that are larger when they lack detail, but the smaller the figure the more difficult it becomes. They are not even close to being completely finished, so there's more work to be done there.
It was kind of dark at the studio when I took these photos...they are definitely not as bright as the canvas truly is. More work on it tomorrow!

Underpainting on the Church Street canvas

Finally put some paint on this canvas. It felt really good to start thinking about colors and putting down a first wash of paint. And while I've made this image before, I'm now considering a variation in colors to go with the room it will eventualy be placed in.

Here's the Benjamin Moore swatch of color that is on the wall -------->

Litchfield Grey

I also have an image of a Crate & Barrel sofa that resides in the room. It's a nice light turqouise/slate color. These are probably the main colors within the space, so I'm going to try to include a few areas that will work to tie in with these two colors. I think the shots of intense color, like the red umbrellas and the dark pink shadow of the wall of the far left building will really be nice punches of color. I've decided I'll tone down the original royal blue of the umbrella in the foreground to be somewhat on the shade of the sofa and then also the smaller umbrellas on the left, a variation of that same hue. It'll be pretty nice, I think! The sky is already shaping up.

Open Studio Success! Phew!!

We all look forward to Open Studios, but I'm always relieved when it's over. It's so much fun to open my studio door (not to mention having a reason to clean the studio) and meet a bunch of genuinly interesting people. You just never know who will walk in your door and what great ideas will come about from good conversation.

After a long weekend of standing and smoosing, I finally got a chance to get the drawing more complete on the Church Street painting. I was getting ready to leave on Sunday night, after saying goodbye to my last visitor and was standing there with my bag on my shoulder staring at the canvas that now hid behind the studio door. It was 5:30 and I wondered what I'd actually do if I went home just then.....read a book....swelter in the heat........pet the cat and get hair stuck all over me? I couldn't imagine working in the sweatshop in the 90 degree heat. So I dropped my bag and pulled out the canvas and got busy.

It's a little hard to see, but it is definitely shaping up!

Big Canvas in my studio!

I've been commissioned to recreate a mural panel that was painted for the Bueno in Burlington, VT. Trace Meek had asked me to lend a hand on his project there and I painted the panel with the image of Church Street on it. A patron of the restaurant liked the panel so much that he endeavored to contact me. So....here's the canvas in my studio (finally)! It's pretty huge, 3'x5' and takes up a lot of space. I was thinking that I'd work on it during Open Studios coming up on June 7 &, but I'm not sure I want to hide behind such a large canvas. Maybe, if I get really crazy, I can start it tonight and finish it by the 7th! That would be cool!