Friday, December 18, 2015

De-Mystifying a Commission, Part Two

Well, this is part two of my post, but an exceedingly great amount of work has transpired!  I missed downloading the pictures of the sunset.  Once the design was approved, I set about doing the background, or sunset, first.  It actually consisted of about five layers of color laydown, which took me about a week.

Once that was finished, it was time for the buildings.  The Bridge ties everything together and is in the foreground, so that was one of the first things I laid down.  Once I had that in, I set up this triangle of buildings (it must always be a nice shape; a nice composition, first and foremost.  If it's not, no amount of work will make it look good.)

Although I want this painting to look as if it was easy and just slapped down, I have to do some serious left-brained work to make that happen.  Much of that includes my t-square, my straightedge, a plumb line and my good old chalk lines - yep - the ones builders use.  I grew up tha-wunking those chalk lines as my dad's able assistant and chief builder's gopher!

By the way, this one is being painted outside because it's four feet by six feet.  The previous commission was five feet by seven feet.  They come in various sizes, however, whatever people want.  Actually, I sold nine or ten watercolor bird paintings this Christmas, and they were only 9" x 12"!

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