I do it for you...

My day started out great!
After an early morning coffee and stroll thru the zoo to celebrate my past birthday with my mom, we grabbed a delicious bite of Vietnamese food in Inglewood. I had a friend stop by to share his life woes and then hopped in the shower before heading to work. I prepped my After Effects Class at Quickdraw early, since it is the first day and taught until 9:30. I realize my schedule is a bit weird from here on in. I get off at 9:30. rather than go home, or better yet, go out with friends...... 
I go paint! 

I blocked in some two toned blue radial stripes in the Saraswati background. The colors I am choosing are inspired by the peacock feather I picked up at the zoo today. Saraswati is often depicted with peacocks. I also painted around the edges so that for this exhibition I do not need to frame all the work, that would be extremely expensive and time consuming.

Since I will need to tape off the lines for crisp edges I can only paint every second one, and it's late but I need to get more done. I make a mixture of cadmium's, hookers green, yellows etc to create to green hues for the next radial lines. The implied circle around the goddess is dark going to light which is opposite from the Ganesh painting (to see click here)  which is light to dark.

It is after midnight by the time I'm done on the Saraswati piece. I am feeling dark and finally take the plunge on the Kali piece.  I have been mulling over the next step for this piece and been too timid to just put the paint to the canvas. Now that the leap has begun I am feeling good that it can go forward from here. I intend on painting red bones onto the body and maybe adding a slight highlight onto the form to make it appear less flat. Believe me it took balls to do just this, but now those balls are rolling ;P

It can be really tough keeping my priorities straight.

Black is Black

+ Some rainbow
--
Winter is coming........I got into the studio and sanded a bunch of canvases that had been eagerly awaiting my return.  The canvas that I previously refinished seems good enough to work on for the Versus show now. It needed another coat of gesso and I decided to try something fun and go with thick tar like black as the base coat.

This Gesso by golden is thick and sticky like tar. The canvas was sanded smooth with 220 grit, yet it was still troublesome to apply. I used a spritzer to help move the gesso along making it much easier to work with.

Working on this canvas with a partner will prove to be an interesting challenge.Afterward, I decided to lay out my 18" X 24" canvases intended for a series of loose portraits of the 7 deadly sins. In my research I found out about a mnemonic device to remember the 7 deadly sins: PEG'S LAW.

I used bright marking paint to denote which canvas will be for which sin. I am also giving myself the challenge of working in character with one of the 7 colours of the rainbow, 7 sins + 7 colours (ROYGBIV). Ranked in the order of severity: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Avarice (Greed) and Wrath.