Working Small - In Progress

About 6 months ago when I started this series of people with patterns I thought I would do a few smaller versions for the artwalk, and just for a break from doing all those larger month long paintings.  I wanted to do a few that I could work on while I was watching TV and sitting at a drawing table.  I stand when I paint and the idea of sitting seemed nice. I do have bad legs after all.

When I first sketched these out I was really unhappy with the shapes.  I'm not sure if they are weaker designs or if I was just used to the larger/longer bodies on the 50 inch paintings.  I was thinking that maybe I should have just drawn torso up rather than adding legs and feet.

With artwalk coming up and my working area covered with large drying paintings,  I pulled these out of storage and went beck into them.  First painting over the smaller floral prints I had started with, then doing a breakdown of the other areas with geometrics and add-ons.

It actually has been nice because the old failed under-painting is adding some nice texture and the process is going much faster then I thought.

These images are 16x20 inches.  They still need all detailing in the flowers and most values bumped.  I'm waiting 2 days for them to dry before I go back into them.  More to come as I finalize them.

Finished

Finally done.  All detailing is done.  Body textures and marbling is all evened out.  Now it is just waiting for it to dry to add gloss.  The big question now arises... do I do more of these happy flower people hoping that the joy of them would make them an easy sale, or head more in the direction of telling a relationship story by having different objects in each body?  Bombs vs. flowers.  Flowers vs booze and pills.

Big flowers

I've been working on this piece for about a week.  I think it is about 75% there.  It seemed like a good answer to the violence of the last rocket painting.  I think the man's hat comes from watching Mad Men on DVD.

Work still to do...  Make dark peddles more irregular both in shape and spacing between individual peddles.  Even out the body color on the right and remove the red.  Maybe add some more blue.  Make sure the overlapping area of the 2 figures is understandable from a distance.

Final should be ready to post in a week or two.

Rockets is finished

Though I might still add some detailing along the edges of the figure the painting portion my "Rockets" figure is all pretty much done.  Once the paint is dry I"ll cover just the figures with a layer of gloss and sporadic glitter.  The glitter give it a nice effect and sparkle when you walk past it, but when you are directly in front you do not see them.  

Even though I am in a great relationship, this is how I see most everyone else's.  So much for the romantic in me.

Final size about 30" x 50"