I have been musing about this painting for some time (mostly in my mind…been procrastinating as far as working on it), but I decided to get started.  If you’ve been following my blogs, you know I draw as realistically as possible what I want to paint.  Here I am (some time ago) drawing a picture I’ve nick-named the “Old Woodie”.

The drawing is 24″X36″ and it took a lot of work and a lot of time to draw it.

I pointed out in one of my earlier blogs (see blog posted on 11/17/2011) that I do seven particular steps before I complete a painting.  One of them is a full size detailed drawing of the picture that I intend to paint.  The reason for this is that I like to imagine myself painting while I’m drawing, and to do so allows me to imagine the problems that will challenge me later.

Anyway, I got up this morning determined to “jump back in.”  So I took a look at the finished drawing that I’d set in the corner for the past few weeks during the holidays…decided to dust it off and start doing something toward getting a painting started.  Here is the finished drawing which I posted on a an older post (see post dated 11/17/2011).

The reason I’ve been musing so long is because I’ve been trying to picture the painting in a somewhat surreal/realistic style, perhaps similar to the style of Thomas Hart Benton or Edward Hopper.  After all this came from a photograph taken back in 1950 of a 1946 wood panel wagon.  That style of art was big at the time.

The picture is obviously ‘realistic’ enough.  I just don’t know how to make it  surreal unless it’s somewhere in the background.

Anyway I’ve taken a few photos of what I did today.  All you artists know it’s just part of the preparation.

 

Since the drawing was on thicker paper, I needed to outline it onto tracing paper so I could transfer it onto the substrate, which is 3/8 inch board.

I also needed to take time to block out the board with an under painting.

Since the time of day (according to the shadows) in the painting is midday, I painted the under painting a yellow-ochre mixed with a small amount of cadmium orange.

I sanded the substrate until it was a glass finish when the paint dried.  that’s what I like about acrylics, they dry quickly.

After sanding down the board, I transferred the drawing by putting white pastel on the backside of the outlined tracing paper and laying it over the substrate and rolling along the lines with a pizza cutter. You have to be careful when you do this so that you don’t indent the board.

Regrettably, the day is gone, and I’ll start laying color on the board another day.