Beach please...

Quick check-in.
My brother saw a painting somewhere, took a picture of it, and requested I re-create it.

Thusly...

It's becoming a thing.

Likely hard to discern at this state, but it's a overhead view of a beach. As if shot straight down from a drone/quadcopter. Waves lapping up. Beach-goers with blankets and umbrellas. Surfers wading out. Palm trees.

I have no idea who the original artist was. Also don't really know what the medium was. The picture my bro sent looked like a painting that was printed on a canvas with some vague craquelure effect on it. A bit strange.

So I'm using acrylics in a watercolor-ish manner. Multiple transparent layers, glazes, starting messy and becoming more careful as I progress. I've never painted something quite this big before. Not as my own piece alone at least. I've done smaller parts of big murals. But this sucker is 60x40. Bananas for scale in the first shot. Lol. It comes up to my eyes.

Trying to only do one layer every couple of days to keep my fingers from freaking out. Doing okay so far.

Cracked up watching the opening ceremony for the Rio Olympics. In one of the first video montages there are a bunch of overhead shots exactly like this one. Funny coincidence.

Also got an idea for a Project for Awesome Art contribution.
More on that later.

Picked a few of the first burgundy beans out of our garden yesterday.
Yay, veg!

Winter throwback I

A handful of older pieces will be on their way to this space during winter break.

First up...

Alphonse Mucha's 'Cycles Perfecta'. The Art Nouveau style is so... accessible? I think it just always looks good. Mucha was the master. Came across this poster a few years ago. I hadn't seen it before. Interesting combination of the crazy hair and dress and simple bicycle. Kinda spiffy. I painted this during 'beginning painting' at the JC. It's more like a class for experienced painters who can take advantage of the studio and get units for it. Our Prof let us paint anything we wanted. Actually, the three figure studies I posted recently were during this class... from the only day we had something specific to paint. I digress...

So, my Cycles Perfecta is acrylic on canvas. 18x24. Pardon the terrible photo quality. I was really happy with it and thoroughly enjoyed painting it. But, the curse of a perfectionist, I wasn't quite happy with the blend on the face and the arms. Went over them again and it irreparably dulled out the color. Gah! Even though it's glaringly annoying to me, I guess it's not obvious to everyone else. Miss Perfecta has recently taken up residence at my bro's place, where she can be enjoyed by real cyclists who would never let their hair get silly enough to get caught in the spokes.