Behind the scenes

My friend Eldon Warren frequently demonstrates the process
he goes through to get to the final result with a painting.
For my painting of Tobias, (see yesterday's entry), I
went through a series of decisions to get to the final
painting.

One of the reference photos of Tobias featured a cute,
little boy dressed in neat party clothes, holding a soccer
ball. I did a sketch of this image one evening and
realized that the picture would be too static to turn
into an interesting painting. It was a cute picture,
but cute wasn't going to cut it.

First sketch of Tobias
(Too standard to stand out)
charcoal on bond paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009

I did a quick sketch of another reference shot, the
one I ultimately based the picture on, and instantly
realized that it had potential. I sent off my first
sketches, and the initial sketch on the canvas
size we had determined, and the assistant producer,
agreed with me that the moving image would be more
interesting.

Trying on the new layout
(You can just see the tiger almost
level with the boy's left ear)
marker on notepaper
5 x 7 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009




First drawing on the orange
ground coat on the canvas.

A tiger slept in the background of the photo I picked, but it
was at an awkward angle and wasn't dramatic enough to
add some zip to the painting. I was thinking of putting
zoo animals into the painting, so I took a bunch of children's
books on animals out of my local library. But thinking about
this idea, I realized I couldn't really mix lions and tigers
and giraffes in one image, because they wouldn't be together
at the zoo. One photo of a tiger and her cubs grabbed me,
but it was the wrong way around. I photographed the
photo, flipped it, and used it as a reference for my
clearly visible tiger and cubs.

Close up of the tiger and her cubs.
The grid, was my ultimate
solution to the problem of a fence.
Anything more would have obscured the
strength of the vegetation and the
tiger and her cubs.

I started fleshing in the painting, but not too much so I
could work on it during the taping of the show.

The painting begins, still wet
acrylic on canvas
Barbara Muir © 2009

After the initial taping, I kept working on the painting, and
the camera man came back to film me as I worked on the
painting. Then I finished it up so it could be in the room
on time for the reveal. So these are some of the decisions I
made in the process of getting to the final work. For the completed
work see last night's blog.

Have an as-long-as-it's-fun-I'm-working-on-it day.