Dispatches

5 things:

1.  "Crafting something is a long, uncertain process.  A maker should show her work."Austin Kleon

2. The "work" in which I am in the long, uncertain process of making, is a painting.  The subject is one of three photos a friend has taken on various trips:  Two in Ecuador, and one in Scotland.  This is the one in Ecuador we picked for me to paint. 

3.  On my own visit to the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria, VA, I saw some paintings done on board panels with 2' deep wood cradles, and I got the idea of extending the painting itself not only across the front surface but also across the cradle surfaces. 

4.  Easier said than done, eh? This is a small 6"x6"x1.5" painting board with the preliminary design sketched on the front and extending to the cradle.  I loved this, and the woman who wanted the painting done liked it, too. It's kinda hard to see here, and the final painting will be much bigger: 2'x2'x2".  You can get the idea that a painting board is different from a canvas in that a) it's a board and b) it has a "cradle" or big "edge."

5.  Next dispatch will talk about the COLORs in this painting.  Unfortunately, one of MY favorite underpainting colors, cadmium orange, is NOT what the commissioner of this painting liked when she saw the first draft.

"ORANGE!  I don't want ORANGE...our living room has soft blues and pink"....well, it won't wind up orange.  It just has it underneath.  and so on....to be continued....