Finally a post about Art is Hard: Painting 01

Hi all. It's been a mad week. I'll tell you more later about that but before I'll give you a sneak peek into how the painting is going.

Slowly is the right word for this one but I think the care I have taken will translate well into the final version. For example I have a clear indication of the dark and white areas which are easy to confuse if you just outline them. I also have decided to change the colour I originally thought of (acid yellow) to a more washed and pastel blue. I think the yellow is too obvious and crass and a little too pop art for the themes I am exploring.

The blue I want will have a subtlety, a blue to remind the viewer of something maritime. A rusting blue you might see at a harbour on a boat or old barrel. I think this will contrast better both with the red/brown colours of the underlying rust and thematically with the setting of dessert Iraq adding another twist to the memory. Constantly inverting the memory until it's barely perceptible.

Next stage will be to test out some blues in Photoshop. After that I want to start laying down the rust undercoat and the blue paint undercoat. I will be using modelling paste and a lot of glazing and varnishes later which I will describe as I go.

Oh and a lesson learnt already: If you use a lot of pencil on your gesso to block out areas of a painting make sure you use fixative or all your colours get muddy. :(