I have completed the "Bingo" commission and have pleased the client as well as myself with the finished painting. The photo at left was the original that I used to create my rendering of him in preperation for the work. This black & white photo is about 2" x 2" in real life but was of good clarity so that detail showed up quite nicely on it.
This next photo is the drawing I did to use as a pattern or template of Bingo which helps me to plan the placement of fiber which ultimately gives the depth, texture and dimension that I am after in the final piece.
Please accept my appology in advance for the quality of the finished Bingo photo! If you read on you will learn why this is.
Next came the actual painting! I was challenged by this piece because the final size of this canvas is only 11" x 10". To give you prespective, the hair on his chin is only 1/4" long. How was I to manage fibers so short and keep them in line so that they give the appearance of life like hairs coming away from his lower lip, combed perfectly straight? It worked in the end and I am always amazed at how I seem to find a way to move through the challenges that present themselves while doing this work.
I really love this medium.... It offers so much flexibility, so many options, so much depth and a richness that I never tire of looking at it or creating with it. I sometimes feel the need to pinch myself to prove that it is real; that I created this artform, and that it has become a part of my life!
I'm glad to be able to finally share this with you but I am not happy about the quality of the final photo of Bingo. One of the reasons for not adding a post in the last weeks is that I have been having problems with my computer. In my constant need to improve things, I decided that I would like to download the upgrade to my Olympus camera program so that I could take advantage of creating slide shows. Easy to do right? Have you ever heard the phrase "if it ain't broke?" Well let me tell you that if I could turn the clock back I would never have attempted it! Something happened in the download process that has rendered my Quick Time program unreadable to the Olympus program even when I have removed the upgrade and re-installed the original program. Not only do I not have access to the hundreds of photos on my computer with a program that I know and love, I have lost a program that gave me incredibly professional looking photos that I could use on my site. I am currently using Picasa in it's place but it is a poor replacement. I find the cropped photos are grainy and the editing software gives me no where near the qaulity that I had. I am beside myself with grief over this loss. It is only because I have finally accepted that Picasa, for now, is my only choice and that I felt I had neglected this blog for long enough that I am now posting.
I promise to write more frequently now as long as you promise to not judge my photos too harshly until I can find resolution for this photo problem :-)
Until then......
The month of August took me to New England earlier than planned to celebrate a death in the family. Since I was due to travel a week later, it made no sense to return to Bermuda, only to find myself back on a plane in a weeks time.
I used the extra time wisely spending some quality time with the new babies in my family and had a blast! I got peed on, puked on, and even pooped on, and loved every minute of these precious moments with the boys; Henry, Jackson and Owen. I will return to Maine in a week for the big event of my year, Fryeburg Fair, and once it has passed will have a few days to reaquaint myself with them again. I will have to soak up as much of them as I can this trip since my travles will not take me near them again til I'm not sure when next year! They will have grown so much by then!
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