Make A Joyful Noise - Continued

Continuing on…after putting in the background I glazed over the sides and interior of the crater to push it into the background. I will have to do it again for more distance. Next, I put the faces in…that was for my benefit because I was tired of looking at just the whiteness of the characters. Giving them faces gave me more interest. The ground of this area of performance was gravel and since I was going for realism I wanted that to look real as well. To get that realism I experimented with brushwork and colors on a separate canvas and also studied other paintings that showed that type of landscape. I think I’ve come close to achieving that look, but will have to tweak it some more and then work it where it fades into the distance. I must say here that I did expect this to be a challenge, but it has turned out to be more of a challenge than anticipated. However, I am enjoying the challenge.


Okay…moving on to the Lauhala matting. I put in all the vertical lines (I think you can see it in this photo) using a ruler and thin paint brush to lay in the lines. Then, as I was about to put in the horizontal lines I realized that the weave lines of the mat were actually supposed to be on a diagonal (insert is an example). OMG…could not believe that. Totally frustrated I had to remove all those lines and start over…AAARGG!! Yes I do intend to paint in all those little squares…am I nuts???


Whew…matting in. Nearly drove me crazy, but it’s done…yay!! Will have to lighten it up some in places to show where the sun is most intense. I’ll try to do that by glazing over the affected sections. Needless to say, this took several days. For my sanity, I could only work on it in short blocks of time.


This is where I am now. Did work some on the gravely affect in the background to show distance. Any critique or comment you may want to make is more than welcomed.

That’s it for now.