finishing 2 derelict projects and heading for the bin?

as the workshop with ted nuttall approaches (just one week now) and needing to get some pre-drawings done, i am determined to finish the two paintings that i stated some time ago. they are the the "posing proud in hobart" and "stories of my people".

penultimate steps in "posing proud in hobart"

"posing proud in hobart" 15"X20"

in respect to "posing proud in hobart", i finished out the area to the side of the building with a fence, and stack of wooden sticks. in retrospect i didn't need to make anything up as they were in the original photo and i decided to go with it for lack of any better idea. next, i painted the ground as it came forward from the building and the fence in the background. the thing here was to get it come forward. there are a number of ways to do this. one is to make the value darker as you move to the bottom of the paper (dark things, in this instance, advance). one can place more distinct and larger objects like grass, rocks/pebbles/other
debris in the foreground. warm colors advance so i
could put more reds, yellows, browns near the bottom and cooler colors like blues, cool greens, etc. farther up (back) in the picture. there really isn't enough distance to give any atmospheric perspective (relative bluing of the light as objects get farther away.) i decided to go with a few of the former and i think it works. i did use some cooler near in terms of the bluer stuff but it was darker and larger shapes that circumvented the color temperature thing. some texture to the weathered board,  spatters over both the building foreground, and some shadow shapes on the building finished this out.

"stories of my people" 16"X20"

switching to "stories of my people" which is really a portrait of annabel, i needed to finish her *left* hand. using the colors that i think i used (its been so long) which are brown madder, burnt umber, and cobalt blue i modeled her hand loosely and filled in the creases such as life line, etc. i still had the background wall on the right side of the picture. i went with a variegated wash of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, mineral violet, and maybe some cool green (not sure which, maybe oxide of chromium). my heart and mind really weren't in it at this point wanting to get on with the homework for the workshop, and i shows. this , if i am going to be honest and you forgive the vernacular, sucks. poor choice of colors, looks like an after thought, and appears to outline her hand rather than helping it blend into the scene. the only thing good i can say about it is that i got it on smoothly without any back runs. whether i can fix it with something glazed over the top is yet to be determined. i finished out this rather feeble attempt by painting the light switch., mainly with negative painting.

at this point part of a day and night have passed and they don't seems quite so bad to me.....the family one is setting better than the portrait, though. yesterday i thought the portrait was a goner and the family might be saved by some judicious cropping. so, time does heal some paintings. i think both need a few more nights of sleep before their final judgement.

on to my drawings on the 300# hot press paper recommended by ted nuttall for the also recommended detailed drawing on which to begin my workshop journey one week and two hours from now....but who is counting?