Starting to work on the characters now...

The juggler is uncanny, the embodiment of physical acuity, a symbol for the precision of human secular constructs... especially this guy who can juggle while appearing to be in a gravity free situation.

Working on the "girl gone wild" 2nd version figure... I thought it interesting to compare her with the first version. 1st ver on left - 2nd ver on right.

For this style of painting, I rely on a maul stick to steady the hand. Being a large picture - 4' x 6' - I need a long maul stick. I found the perfect candidate with a 6' hollow aluminum tube which has just the perfect amount of flexibility. Even though it is lightweight, it still gets pretty heavy in the hand after hours of painting... so, since I use a 2" overshoot border on my panels, why not put some screws in there to use as resting points for the maul stick... why not! Works great...



Also starting to work on the landscape in the background...

Working on a large painting, I felt the need to be able to store mixed oil paint for long periods of time so I would be able to match exactly previously painted areas for touch ups, blending, etc. You may recall I experimented using weekly pill dispensers... wasn't a good idea. However, using small bottles to hold the paint with water on top of the paint seems to work quite well.

Below is the evidence. The paint in the bottle in the photo is about 6 weeks old.


A and B show my home made paint bottle rack and a close up of a bottle of water covered paint. C shows the bottle open with water still in it... and D shows the paint with water removed and a gob spread nicely on my palette, pretty much as fresh as the day I put it in the bottle.

When first put in the bottle, before adding water, I put the top on and tap the bottle hard on a table surface to knock the paint down flat to the bottom. I use a plastic tube with finger over the top to get water into the bottle. Works well... one of those plastic tubes that new size 1 sables come in...

Getting the water out is easy. I just dump it in my waste can which is generally filled with old paper towels from various clean ups. Then I gently shove a tissue (Kleenex type) into the bottle and vigorously shake it upside down. A little paint gets on the tissue, but not much and the excess water drops are removed.

The bottle in the photo is the 0.25 oz version from www.ebottles.com. The little bottles cost $0.19 ea. in quantity... they're cheap enough, so when done they can simply be thrown out...