2b. Continuing Michael Pellecchia

Here's my starting point for today. I've painted in the black bricks, but before I add more color over the black, I want to add some black to the heater while I have black paint on my brush.

Some details like this go back and forth between the light and dark areas. In putting in the value of the lighter parts, the darker parts got too washed out. Now, I'm correcting this, but it won't be the last time I work on this heater.

Meanwhile, I checked on how well my last painting is drying. Its actually drying a lot faster than I expected. But, it is still the dry season in Costa Rica. The rainy season is about to start when we have rain every afternoon and many evenings. I'm expecting all that moisture to effect drying time, but will just have to wait and see.

As I lightly touched this painting, I found that there were about four areas of pure white paint that still felt a little wet. Not sticky, but a little chalky like. When you run you finger across it, you get a faint amount of white on your finger. A few hours with a light close to the wet areas help drying. I wouldn't want to do that with really wet paint because it might cause cracking with such a fast drying time. The heat works well right at the end.

Now back to Michael Pellecchia. The bricks are still black, like I left them....

Now I will add some reddish color over them to add some color interest.

I'm leaving much of the black and just dragging my brush over the brick area. I also went back over the mortar, adding light and dark grey until it looked right.

Next, I want to work on the instruments. I think I've been putting these off as the difficulty level is pretty high. So, best thing is to just dive right in. You can see that I have been painting around them, but not taking that much care to keep their shape.

 I started by painting the black, since black is the dominate color, and added in light touches of white and grey over the black.

In this photo, the right instrument is black without any white yet.

Now they are all done, but I will come back later and fix a few little things once it is dry.

Next, I want to work on his tennis shoes. You can see here that they are still just pencil and canvas, although I had started placing a little paint on the right one.

I started by zooming into the shoes on my laptop so I could see what they really look like. I don't need this much detail on my small painting, but still want it to look right.

Knowing that I didn't want them to scream out too much and draw attention away from the other elements, I painted them in solid with a blue/violet grey. Now I will start putting details over this color, wet on wet.

While I'm at it, I decided to also work on the music stand base, so I zoomed in on that as well.

So, here they both are. The shoes look suspended above the floor because the shadow on the floor has yet to be defined.  I will come back later and add a small amount of light grey on the brightest area of the left shoe.

Now, I'm going to tackle the case sitting on the floor next to the left of him. The photo doesn't show it very well, so the details are hard to see. I will paint it as best I can.

I have already given it some underpaint just to place it in the right place and give it some shape. I would like it to catch some of the light coming from the window. I start out with a tan color. See how I am using my flat brush at an angle to get the perspective on the left side and to narrow the strip of color I am applying?

Once I finished the basic colors of the top, I went down the front side as well. If I've done too much I can always go back over it.

Here's the finished case. You can see that I put in a black shadow line across the bottom so that it sits on the floor right. This will be reworked as I work on the floor more.

This is what it looks like now. Most everything is painted in, but everything needs some tweaking. I particularly need to go back in on Michael and work more on his face and hands. I've been working on other areas while his skin tones dry.

So, now its time to go back in and work on the floor. I have it roughed in, but I want to do a lot more with it. I start by putting in more defined black lines between the floor boards, making sure I have the perspective right.

Right now the floor colors are washed out and the lines between the boards are too heavy. 

I start by putting some rich Burnt Siena under Michael's area.

I go to my laptop to see what the photos shows. The floor has a lot of worn places and I will work those in slowly as I go. 

The windows are creating some very dramatic reflections on this old floor and I want to emphasize that. I'm all about reflections anyway........so, here's my chance!

This, might take several rounds to get it the way I want it.

Well, the electricity went off in our house. This happens often in rural Costa Rica and we have gotten used to it. It usually comes back on in an hour or so. Meanwhile, I'll move to our porch where the light is better than my dark, unlighted studio.

Actually, the light is wonderful today. The overcast sky diffuses the light just right for me.

You can see our porch in this photo. We love it here!

Back to the painting... I need to work on those black floor lines before I go any further.

They need to be reduced in size, and the only way to do this is to put paint on either side of them. As you can see, this is not easy since there are a lot of different colors already in the wood next to the lines. So, what? I still have to do it.

I go from color to color to accomplish this. When I have an orangish color on my brush I paint all the spots next to the lines that need that color. I keep going across the floor until the lines are less thick and the paint is right.

While I do this, I am also changing some colors because I want more reflections on the wood from the windows. I also want to reflect some of the details from the windows into the floor. You can see above how I brought down the wood trim between the windows into the reflection. I did that on both sides.

So, here is the painting at the end of this painting day. The floor is much richer than before. The warm browns and oranges of the bricks tie into the colors of the floor, giving the composition some more structure to hold it together. Even the instrument case works as a transitional color between the wall and floor. Even though the windows and floors are very large and dominate in this piece, Michael remains the central dominant point of the painting, almost framed by the four quadrants of the background.

Tomorrow, I will go back in and work out all the little things that I left for later. This painting is almost done. But...

I'm done for today.