I'm Gonna Try Paint This In Oils (A Photo I Took Recently)

[nolan]

some pretty good guess work there Tony 

[Val]

Nice work Tony, knowledge or not you did a great job. 

  Aw Liz.... I fell in love with a little Takamine years ago, by the time I'd saved enough money for it .... it had sold.    On board I have a 12 string Ovation ... helps keep me occupied between painting and drawing 

[liz]

Wonderful, Val! Ovation guitars have great sound! One never has lonely moments when she can reach for her guitar! Serenading Lloyd, yet!  Lucky chap!

I think a lot of artists may also be musicians or musicians at heart!  My son, a professional musician, doesn't do art, though. He left yesterday to do a Christian worship conference in Manila, PI, accompanied by hula dancers, medical missionaries and doctors, too.

[patindaytona]

Really good work Tony. Liz and Val you play guitar? I play all the time.

[thegrindre]

I wasn't going to share this but, I play the blues harp... Let's jam sometime. 

[liz]

Now, that's really interesting!  So Pat plays the guitar, also!   It could be that more artists are musicians, after all, than musicians who also are artists!? Now TONY is the best music theory and guitar teacher on line that I enjoy very much!  When you're not painting, check out his videos!

I guess we're all on the same time!  What is a 'blues harp'?

[Kelley]

Hey, I play the radio well     
Actually I gave up the guitar and thankfully my daughter picked up where I left off.

[thegrindre]

Here's a blues harp...

[liz]

It looks like my friend's harmonica; he has a C and D one.  Blues must sound awesome on your instrument!

So Kelley plays the radio!  I better start dinner soon-  you've heard of a TV dinner; well, my husband may have a radio one (one he can't see)!

[Tony (ASM)]

WOW! Double WOW!  Words escape me, Tony!  Gorgeous hair in the portrait and your jet is so realistic in its sheen!  You can do anything well, Tony!  You'll do GREAT with your large canvas!  You've motivated me to prep a couple canvases, but right now I'm only viewing Lesson 21 on Theory!

P.S. Just thought I'd tell you I bought a lawsuit Martin Takamine from a collector friend recently, after selling my Washburn when I moved 9 yrs. ago.  When I retired from teaching I didn't think I needed a pick up anymore since I wasn't going to play in school assemblies. Anyway, my new old guitar has great sound quality and the narrow neck makes barring easier for me!

Thank you Liz!  It's a long time since I painted those. I can't believe how I actually managed to produce them without ANY colour mixing knowledge or, ANY compositional knowledge! I'd never painted before these apart from one I did as a 11 year old kid. (I'll post that very first picture to show it. My teacher had kept it and gave it to me when I was 35 as a surprise!).
Drawing, with incorrect school pencils, was something I was able to do and, it became escapism in a violent home of an aggressive step Father/household. Sometimes I get a panic attack if I draw now, as a throwback to those days (I'm reluctant to draw as a result. Painting doesn't have same affect though)  Awful emotional scars I'm afraid. 
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the step by step postings of this project.
Thanks again.
 

[Tony (ASM)]

Great comments feedback! Thank you all 
Yeah, it is strange that many artists also play instruments and do photography. Something to do with the creative side of the brain I hear. The world would would be a very dull boring place without this wonderment!
Today I'm gonna scale up the pic and grid it on the canvass. Not totally sure how to do that in proportions correctly to this odd sized canvass but, I'll go for it or, just do it by eye like I did with those previous ones!
I'm gonna use any pencil I find. I think I have a set of drawing pencils somewhere. (everything got mixed up and messed up when we moved here. 6 years on still not sorted the loft! I hate that insulation prickly stuff so avoided it!)
Thank you again.
 

[Tony (ASM)]

Oh, I just want to mention, I printed this photo  I intend to paint, onto plain paper a few times That way I can draw grid lines over it in pen or pencil. I'm hoping it'll give me scaling options and adjustments.
I also copied from scanning it out in black 'n white. (couldn't manage to change it on computer to give B&W or do a sepia). This gives me some idea of the dark area values.
Anyway, I just wanted to share the idea. 
 

[Val]

Unhappy childhoods do leave their mark, but look how far you've come. I have a problem with redrawing things, especially in larger scale. Its pretty much hit and miss for me, the grid does help but still a struggle. Can't wait to see this one Tony. Carry on!

I have a blues harp as well Rick. Love it! Also muck about with the recorder and penny whistle. Used to play a bit on keyboards before an accident and suffered some nerve damage. All the instruments as well as the drawing and painting serve as excellent therapy.

[Tony (ASM)]

Today I have done a printout on 2 A4 plain sheets of paper and drawn a grid of 1 cm squares. (Took ages and had to stay accurate!) I've extended the picture on the right (but may change my mind) and, I will extend it on the left later. ( I didn't take a photo to the left so I will have to create the image based on the scene!). I'm also gonna extend it above and below to fit on the canvas and, place the Duck a little higher on a rock so it fits the 'rule of thirds'. I've stuck the 2 sheets of paper together using cellotape.
I'll now think about the scale sizing proportions to fit this 28 x 39" (700 x 1000mm) canvas with flexibility within the top or bottom extensions to fit the landscape mode of the canvas.
I'm gonna grid it up on the canvas next. In the mean time, here's a picture of the print out with these 1 cm square grid (right click on thumb nail picture and open in a new tab window if it doesn't load) It'll display a bigger image that way:
 

[thegrindre]

Me being the 'computer artist' around here, I'm asking why you didn't do all that hard work in your PC first THEN print it out all set up and ready to go, TopDog?

Looks really good, though... Nice job.