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Eastern Nebraska Veterans Home Project - "Defenders of Our Freedom"United States Navy"Thunder at Dawn" |
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This project actually began in March of 2008 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. With the submission I included this sketch of the US Navy piece of the project. Depicted here are the USS Princeton, 2 F6F Hellcats from that Light Carrier, and the USS Cassin Young, a Destroyer, part of the group at Leyte Gulf in WW II. |
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I will have to do another drawing in full size for this piece before I can go to canvas with it. |
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Along with painting the Marines "Answering the Call", I've been doing research for the other 5 paintings. Even though I have a sketch for the Navy Painting, I've been looking for photos with more details on the elements that I'm using. But those are very difficult to find. Photography was not very advanced in the 1940's. So ... Here's an image of my husband building a model of the F6F-Hellcat. It's one of the planes that was on board the USS Princeton. When he's done I'll be able to take photos of the model in any of the positions that I want to include in the painting!! Pretty nifty don't you think?? So do you think I can talk him into building a ship or two? *giggle* |
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October 21, 2008 -- I've just started to redo my research for this piece and get some of the reference photos that I'll need to complete the full size drawing. These are among the 30 or so photos that I took of the F6F-3 Hellcat model (that my husband built for me.) I took the photos from all sorts of angles trying to get just the right perspective and positioning. I think these are two of the ones that I will use. (I have to tell you that it was great having this model to play with and get just the right shot.) |
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October 26, 2008 -- Okay, here's the full size drawing for this painting. As you can see it changed a bit from the original drawing. When I was reworking this I thought that it would be better to give the Light Aircraft Carrier center stage (so to speak) And to show a bit more detail of that ship. So she moved around some. And I wanted to include a few more ships that were in the battle for Leyte Gulf, so I did just that. I think this composition will work well. |
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October 28, 2008 -- I sent the image above to my client and the drawing was approved! Yipee!! So I've transferred it to the primed wood canvas - that's the image below. And now it's on to the first layers of paint.
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October 29, 2008 -- Yipee!! Color!! Laying in the first layer of paint is really a lot of fun. You get to play with color and you don't have to concentrate too much on details. I thought with all the water and sky in this composition that giving it a dawn/dusk look would help to add lots of interest to the piece rather than just blue sky and blue water. |
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October 30, 2008 - Layered in the water, as you can see. Although there's actually a bit more purple in the water than is seen in the photo. I'm not sure why, but digital photography just doesn't seem to pick up that color really well, or maybe it's just my digital camera. In any case, there's lot more variation of colors in the water than there appears to be here. And this is just the first layer.
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November 1, 2008 - I think I spent 6 hours on the Official Navy Seal! It has a lot more detail in it than it looks at first glance. And it will definitely need another session to clean things up and then one more after that to give the elements in the seal a bit of depth. Geez!! But as I try to explain to all my students ... "Good Art takes time". As you can see, I've put some of the base layer of colors in for the wakes of the ships, the start of some color in the ships and a bit of orange in the sky. |
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November 3, 2008 -- There was a lot of sunlight coming into the studio when I took this image. So it's alot more yellow than it should be. I adjusted it some in Photoshop but not all of the true colors are showing. But you get the general idea. However, I did add more orange and yellow into the sky and a little work on the clouds. The big difference today is the addition of detail work on the two ships. I did them in a series basic gray colors. I'll go back later and add some reflection of the colors in the sky. No more work yet on the Aircraft Carrier, it sorta scares me. But I'll get there.
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November 4, 2008 -- This image is far truer to color than yesterdays image. Which may make this image a bit confusing because I worked on the sky and it is rapidly changing color. It's easier to tell the difference in color if you scroll up to the image of November 1. That image is truer to actual color as is this one. I worked on adding more color to the water too. Now why did I change the color?? Well, this is where I get esoteric on you -- It didn't feel right the other color. This feels right. It's one of those times where all I can say is that the painting "spoke" to me. |
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November 5, 2008 -- Finished the changes in the sky and cloud colors, but since the sky changed color, well the water has to change too. Because obviously water gets it's color as a reflection of the color in the sky. But make no mistake the first layer of color was really important to have to be able to achieve the colors that you see now. (Did that make sense??). Each layer that you put in has to contain more linseed oil than the layer underneath. Otherwise, as the paint dries it will crack. Because of this the layers on top aren't as opaque as the layers below and you can actually "see" thru them. This effect helps to add depth to the 2 dimensional image and really brings the painting to life.
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November 6, 2008 -- Worked totally on the water yesterday. And it's really coming along, but .... it's still gonna need more layers to look like real water. But this is a good start. I ordered samples for the frames this week. A good rule of thumb for framing is that the color for it should be the darkest of the colors in your painting. Now with that said -- I have framed some watercolors in white, but I think that's the only exception to the rule that I've done. Usually I frame my pieces in a black or really dark brown frame. I like to have the frame pretty much disappear. I want the artwork itself to be the focal point not the frame. But I did order some lighter samples just to see how they look. All the pieces will be framed in the same thing to keep the series as a whole. |
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November 7, 2008 -- I worked a little bit more on the sky, adding more yellow and some reddish violet so that it would glow some more. Then I added more yellow to the water in the center and now the whole thing really glows. I was then ready to work on the planes. I got the first layer of paint in for those. I still don't have a title for this piece yet. So if you have any suggestions please let me know.
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November 10, 2008 -- Soooo ..... Friday I worked on the Light Aircraft Carrier. I'm not sure why, but this particular ship is making me very nervous. Even after all the other pieces of equipment that I've worked on in this series. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my husband is an old Navy man. LOL!! Anyway, when I'm a bit nervous about an element it always takes longer to paint. Then on Saturday, I sat down and was still unhappy with the color of the water. (Could you tell??? LOL!!) I think that this is the colors that I've been working towards the whole time. But I was a bit leery of going all the way with it. Which is why it took several layers to get here. Anyway, it's not quite as bright as this appears to be. The digital image is always brighter. But it's lots more of a dawn look. Now the ships in the background and the planes need to be a bit darker and the Aircraft Carrier needs to be lighter. |
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November 12, 2008 -- This photo is much truer to color than the previous one. It's bright, but not overwhelming. I worked on the light Cruiser and the Destroyer in the last 2 days. It's been slow going because of all the detail in those ships. Now they work - color wise - with the rest of the colors in the painting. I won't be painting today, I've got paper work that has to get done. Not all the business of Art is painting, sometimes it's just business. UGH!! |
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November 14, 2008 -- Spent the day painting in little tiny ships. So the going was slow. Also worked on making the water a bit more choppy. And then started the clean up of the Official Navy Seal. It's a bit dark in the studio today because of all the rain we're having. So the image is a little dark. Oh! I think I have a title for this one, finally -- "Thunder at Dawn"
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November17, 2008 - So I finally decided that working on the Aircraft Carrier was a good plan. I had to first change the color to go with the altered colors of the water and the sky. I'm going to add a hint of blue to the deck once the yellows and oranges dry. The decks were painted a medium to deep blue with the numbers painted a dark blue. I'm still working on getting all the small details into the ship and that's really slow going. |
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November 18, 2008 - The other day I was painting tiny little ships. Now I'm painting bigger ships with tiny little people. LOL! What is gonna make the aircraft carrier look right is to put some of the sailors on deck and in all the gunner positions. Now the trick is to put just the right amount of people. To many and it looks silly, too few and it looks silly. I also added some of the blue-gray color to the deck and the sides. The other thing I had to do was to get rid of the center line on the deck, this particular ship - the USS Princeton-CVL-23 , did not have the center line. I'm really glad that I noticed that in my research pictures. Other ships of this same class do have the center line. But not this one.
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November 20, 2008 -- Still more little people on the ship, but now we also have 2 little planes. We need more little people and work on the 2 bigger planes. |
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Friday, November 21, 2008 - The 2 larger planes are now the dawn colors, but maybe not quite the right dawn colors. I think that they're too different from the ships in the foreground and they're a bit too light. I'll have to wait until they dry some to work on the color. In the meantime there's always more little people! LOL! But we are getting very close to finished. |
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Monday, November 24, 2008 - She's Finished!! More people went onto the Aircraft Carrier and more guns. I tried a plane on her deck but I really didn't care for the way it looked. Worked on the Aircraft Carrier's wake also and on the color in the two planes in the foreground. Also added a bit more orange to the clouds to help unify the color. Now on to the last one in the series - the US Merchant Marines. |
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