"Speechless"

That was Kelle's comment when I emailed her the final photos of her finished paintings this morning. I told her I wanted her to see pictures of the finished painting before I posted them on the blog for all to see. Arrangements are being made to hang them in her husband's absence on Saturday so he will see them on the family room wall when he arrives home Saturday night. How I'd love to see the look on his face!!!



Now that I know Kelle has seen the photos, now you can see them too. For those of you who have not been following along with this painting's progress on the blog, here's a brief recap in pictures:

The blank canvases, 3 of them, each 24"x48"

The pencil lines you can barely see...

Background....

And more background....

Finally on to Steele...

and hair on Frank and Skylar...

Steele is finished and on to Frank and Skylar...

Who knew Frank's jacket and jeans would be so challenging??

Finished Father and Son...

On to finish Skylar....

And the finished project (except for drying...)

Happy Father's Day, Frankie! Enjoy your wife's gift!

Almost There!

All that's left of the painting project is to tweak a few minor details and to possibly add some cactus to the background. And of course to let it dry...





Here are photos of the last 2 days' progress:

2 Down....1 to Go!

Although I'm sure I will have some details to go back and tweak, two of the three figures on my painting project are complete! Woo hoo!









Yesterday was a long day and I didn't even arrive home until 9:30 pm or so, but I was determined some more work would be done on the painting. I had a meeting right after work and needed to stay in town until Heather finished at dance camp at 8:30 so I killed time by shopping for groceries. I'm sure my family is thankful I finally did so as the pickings were getting slim in the cupboards! When we're all this busy we tend to just grab a few things at the store on our way through town to get us through a day or two, or a meal or two. I had lots of time to kill because with gas so high I refused to come back home and then go back to town for Heather. I took my time shopping and still had over 30 minutes to wait in the parking lot. My friend Clara and I killed time catching up and exchanging ring tones on our phones. I teased her that we were as bad as our teenage daughters!







As soon as I arrived home, Marty (who'd spent the evening working on a side job) came inside and cooked dinner so I could get to work on the painting. He even fixed my plate and brought it to me so I wouldn't have to stop. At one point I was so tired, but was on a roll so didn't want to stop but I knew if I didn't stop I'd make mistakes and have to fix it later. I decided I'd take a nap and wake up later and finish the jeans and hair of the father figure in the painting. I woke at sometime after 3, wide awake ready to tackle it again. In no time I had the figure complete.















HUH???

The first time Heather walked in early in this project and I had all 3 canvases upside down I'm sure she thought I'd lost my marbles. Once complete, these canvases will not be framed so the bottom edges have to be painted too.

All in all I am enjoying this project. VBS is looming next week and I know I will be way too tired at the end of the days next week to work on this at all. I also need to finish before then to allow plenty of drying time before I can put the canvases back in their box and deliver them to Kelle. That day is approaching very soon!

More Progress on the Painting Project

Despite all our weekend activities, I still managed to work on my painting project. I'm excited to see it all coming together and to get closer and closer to finishing. Here's where I am so far:

What Day Is It???

This week has just been a blur of late nights and early mornings. Marty's still working on the pool, making final adjustments, filling it with water, hooking up filters, etc.

Look E, it's almost full!!!!

I'm still plodding right along on the painting project:

Today was Heather's last day of school. She is now a junior! (??? when did this happen???) She will have a slightly heavier load next year as she will be taking a dual credit social studies/history class (dual credit means she will receive high school credit as well as college credit for the same class). She will once again be a member of the Wind Symphony Band at the high school, as well as a member of the Starsteppers Dance Team. In addition, she has applied for and she just learned yesterday she was appointed as Photo Editor for the school newspaper for next year. She is so excited about it and she will be attending a journalism conference next month where she's hoping she'll be able to sit in on some photography classes. She also recieved word this week that she scored very well on the history portion of her TAKS test and was commended for her score on that test. Way to go Heather!!!

Nothing Between My Ears??!!

I'm still spending evenings/late nights working on this painting project. Tonight I finally have all of the white space filled with color!

My friend Jim told me today the reason I can paint is because I have nothing between my ears! Gee thanks, Jim! Actually.....he may be on to something. Either that or this terpentine is affecting my brain! Since I paint almost every night I sometimes leave my brushes sitting in the terpentine. Unfortunately, when I began tonight I discovered I'd also left a palette knife in the terp. A plastic palette knife! You know what terpentine does to plastic???

Some of the detail work is getting finished.

Kelle, the woman who's hired me to paint this picture, left the most touching comment on my last post of this project.

Kelle, I didn't know you've been watching the progress but I'm so glad you like it so far!

On to more detail, highlights, shadows, camoflauge...................

Will My Office Always Smell Like Terpentine???

Gag. Cough. Choke. I think I remember one of the reasons I began experimenting with acrylics several years ago!







My deadline to finish this painting is looming so guess where I spend the majority of my free time??!! But....the background is finished, except for some tweaking here and there and some detail to be added to the foreground later. Now on to the people. First up...the hair so I can get it out of the way. Hair is not one of my strong points! (Which is probably why, when in school, in one of my illustration classes for my airbrushed portrait assignment....I chose a BALD baby! My instructor, Jeff, teased me about that as he beautifully rendered a portrait of a woman with gorgeous long locks! But I'd had my fill of hair on a previous project with markers in which I illustrated a monkey! Gah!) But I digress. Back to the task at hand.

Little by little.....