Eastern Nebraska Veterans Home

"Defenders of Our Freedom"

Project Description

This project actually began a few months ago with my submission to a nation wide Call for Art that was arranged through the Nebraska Arts Council. The new Eastern Nebraska Veterans Home in Bellevue, NE in compliance with Nebraska's Percent-for-Art program announced a request for proposals and direct purchase art competition. I submitted a proposal for a commissioned set of artworks.

I'm happy and excited to say that I was awarded the commission for this artwork.

Here's a brief Description of the Project:

It is a set of six paintings that celebrate our Armed Forces and the people and "machines" that make up those forces. Each one of the works in this set focuses on one of the Services:

Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Merchant Marines and Coast Guard

Each will depict service men, women and/or equipment from that service from various periods of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Each will contain the official seal of that service. My hope is that these works will recall the pride and the glory experienced by all those amazing people who chose to give of themselves to us and our country.

And now it begins!

Each of the six paintings will measure 48 inches long, by 30 inches tall. And each will be painted on a masonite panel.

On Saturday the 10th of May, I paid a visit to my 2nd favorite store on the planet - Lowe's (my first favorite being any art store) purchased the 4 ft. x 8 ft. sheets of Masonite and had the very nice man at the store cut them to size for me.

Here you can sort of see the size of the panels (although they're up on end).

The first step with the panels is to roll on gesso.

I do both sides of the panel. This helps to reduce any warp that might occur and it helps to seal the wood for general protection.

I use a roller recommended for stains. It's really smooth and helps to keep the amount of texture to a minimum. And them I roll over and over again to keep "knocking" down the texture of the gesso. This helps to minimize the amount of sanding that has to be done. You can see in the images below the difference in the texture that can be achieved.

It will take about a week to get all six panels prepared for paint. In the mean time, I'll be working on the sketches for each.

I couldn't resist taking this photo. That's all the pieces of masonite for this project in one shot. *giggle* Sort of the "before" picture.

I'm done with the gesso-ing them (priming). The good side received 3 coats each. That made the texture on the surface pretty smooth.

So the next step is to actually draw! The debate for that was what size to draw them in. I decided on a two step process. This image is the first step.

It' a thumbnail sketch for the first one I've chosen to do- The Marines. (Each of the services is going to be done in a different era - for the Marines, I've chosen the present and the War in Iraq). In this small, quick sketch I've played with the layout of the different elements that I've selected for the piece. It's a bit hard to see with all the scribbling and erasing, but that's what a thumbnail sketch is for.

With this as a sort of road map, I'll be creating the final drawing. The second step in the drawing process will be a full size drawing of the painting. A 30" x 48" drawing. Doing it full size will really help with getting all the details into the finished painting that I want to include. It will slow things down at this stage, but it will speed up the painting stage (I think)! Anyway, Norman Rockwell - my personal hero - did alot of his paintings this way. So it should work great!