The Veranda - Five

New face for the cheetah! New perspective for the chair! I altered the perspective slightly on the veranda fence and I added a second layer of flesh color to our serene model who is busy checking her email. I think it might be a nice touch to add a cup of tea somewhere. Also, in keeping within the context of Persian painting, this painting has lots of room for ornamentation - the pants, the turban, the fence, the cushion - all are calling out for decoration of some type.

The Veranda - Four

new sketch

new sketch overlaid

face lift!

I decided I wanted the cheetah to have a more stylized face since I think he looks too much like a house cat. I think the new face is better - now he needs his spots! I'm not quite ready to finish him up, first I need to face the grim and taxing chore of adjusting the perspective of the veranda and the woman's chair. This is where the "pain" in painting comes into play. Once I get past that, the rest will be pure fun.

The Veranda - Three

After I finished blocking in the color for the veranda floor, I realized it was the same color that I will be using for the cheetah. Hmmmm. That will never do. So I overpainted it with white so that the cheetah will be easier to paint. I got rid of the pot belly on the cheetah, wish it were that easy to do in real life. Still gotta fix that face. Not only the cheetah's face needs altering, now the odd perspective which works in the Persian paintings is really not working here. No doubt because I did not use the same perspective on the homes in hills.

So I need to make a decision, since I want consistency. Either I change the Western style perspective of the homes and "flatten" them out so that it becomes more like a Persian miniatures painting style, or I change the perspective of the veranda and the woman's chair to a more Western style of perspective. I decide to compromise. I like the homes as they are, and I don't want to change them. On the other hand, I still want to infuse the painting with a sense of the past, so even though I will be doing lots of corrections in the foreground, I'm going to have to figure out how to retain the air of a Persian miniature painting. Maybe I can't do it. Maybe this little challenge is just not possible. But I'll try it out. Sometimes the best results come from mistakes and unplanned detours!

The Veranda - Two

The dark green hills have been lightened to a lime green and additional coloring added to the lower part of the painting. I thought blue would be a nice undercoat of color for the giant bush/tree on the right side. It was a spontaneous decision, and now I kinda like it as is, it reminds me of a lilac bush. But I'll come back to that later, I'd like to map in the other areas with color first, just to see how it all works together.

The Veranda - One

the study

the sketch

detail

Now we are off and running. I've sketched the image onto a 40" x 30" hardwood panel and begun the addition of some background color. I like working on a wooden panel as opposed to canvas because I can do fluid line work and intricate details much easier, and since I'm working in acrylics, this too is a consideration. I already see where I will have to make corrections. The cheetah's face is just not right. But we shall get to that when we get to that!

The Veranda - Gathering Ideas

Sometimes I can't post a new painting every other day, because it takes longer than a couple of days to finish a painting, especially if it's large. So I thought, why not post the progress of a painting as I create it? Hmmmmm - could be interesting! Or not! Let's just see.

 So here we go. I've always been fascinated by Persian and Indian miniature paintings of the 6-7th century AD, and when I came across these paintings (above), I decided to paint a modern equivalent of the same theme, a lovelorn woman waiting for the return of her beloved. I'm going to utilize the ancient techniques of shifting perspective points, flat planes and decorative elements to imitate the style of a miniature painting while still maintaining a contemporary outlook.

 Here's some scrap I've found to help me create this painting:

Here's the study, a very loose photo sketch put together in Photoshop. The grid lines will help me as I sketch it onto my 40" x 30' panel:

I used the headdress of the first miniature painting in place of the towel, and I also reduced the size of her hands and feet, although maybe not quite enough to be as exaggerated as I was envisioning. And we single gals, we love our kitty cats!