Studio 1-12-11

Beginning a new painting, based on a photograph of my father-in-law. two 24"x48" panels, two 24"x24" panels

Started the rough-in with Burnt Umber, just looking for relationships, angles and large masses/forms at this point. Burnt Umber seems to work well for me as a base sketching material, I tend to shy away from dark values and this provides a good dark ground to build off of.

The portrait elements of this piece had been in another configuration before I started the rough-in mentioned above. The opportunity to quickly experiment with some of the yellow stripped panels from mid-December proved too much of a temptation so I spent some time rearranging things into this composition. Typically no real conclusions are arrived at with regards to the success of any combination until some time has passed and there is a chance to feel out what's working or what's not. Truthfully, sometimes it is simply fun and a pleasure to rearrange these things and to instantly see something new, the simple joy of looking and discovering. In this case the same problems of having the portraits floating on top remain, although I like having the panel cut into the top portrait's space. The colors seem to be a nice compliment so this may be something to pick up on and begin to add more paint to this arrangement.

We'll see, at this point I am more interested in spending some time getting the father-in-law piece going along with some others.