Acrylic painting 22x15, Polli's Restaurant, Makawao, Maui, HI

My friend Julie Galeeva has a gallery here in Makawao, we decided to paint Makawao on Location from under her outside roof, it's in the shade protected from the rain, but not the wind. It took all day to draw.

My panel is smooth gesso, first a charcoal drawing converted into a thin line painted with Liquitex Clear Medium and bt. umber. This makes a wash tint strong enough to take a good scrubbing. Some lines, like the ones you want to follow through the next layer of paint, you would want dark. An accurate drawing is my framework and worth the time invested, because the painting is going to take much longer.

Architecture always takes twice as long, this painting has a unique overhead wiring system, all four road directions are going to different elevations, the building itself is below eye level. Good fun.

Sitting here in the middle of Makawao, Maui with a 360º view there are vertical lines everywhere. I notice that all the buildings vertical lines come right toward my feet no matter which degree I'm facing. Just like reflections. Sixty degrees is my undistorted view that I can see with both eyes at once. That's why I like the 22x30 format. It's proportion fills the 60º painting at arms length. I drop the 60º view down to my 60º painting. Starting with a horizon line and a dot on it marking a prominent point the middle of the view. The center of the view on the horizon line in you're painting. From this horizon dot I find two more prominent markers and connect the dots making a triangle on my painting. Another triangle can be made from any dot. As far as aerial perspective is concerned, the first concentric circle around you is ten yards away. You should be able to see the difference between darkest shadow next to you and one ten yards out. Search "concentric rings" in my index Search Box. That will take you to this page, "4 Point Lineal Perspective and Aerial Perspective on Concentric Rings" to open in a new tab or window. Or you can go here, perspective.htm .

Day 0, the drawing as acrylic lines, the charcoal drawing was already washed off.

Day 1, 5-3-11, Acrylic Colors: O.H. Indian yellow (clear, monotoned), O.H. Indian Yellow Org/side, O.H. Indian Yellow Brn/side, orange, red, trans magenta, trans purple, ult. blue, cobalt blue, trans cyan, trans green yell/side, yellow-green. The colors are local highlight colors, at this point I'm working in patterns. I had painted the whole sky the sky cloud color and planed on painting in the sky color and wiping out the clouds before it dried but it was too windy and the paint dried too fast. Now I have to do it over again. Sometimes acrylic paint has drawbacks.

Day 2, 5-15-11, 8 to 12, Started adding shadow colors.

Day 3, 5-20-11, 12 to 2, I'm going to stay with the 8 AM to 12 PM colors and I'm going to try and even out the sky before I come on location again because I want the tree line to be on top of finished color. Maybe I'll do a new sky the same colors as the old sky. I'll paint the clouds in on location.

Day 4, 6-8-11, 11:45 to 1:45, Doing the main wires on top of the sky and trees. First in charcoal than pencil, than acrylic clear coat at home. There are 36 wires up there. I have to change the color on the left pole to a warm gray, increase the width of the right pole to where the new pencil lines are. It was cold and windy, I had to stop. (to be continued after jacaranda season)

Day 5, 9-4-11, 11:30 to 1:30, I drew in the overhead wires darker with a pencil while in the house and went out to Polly's location for 2 hours. The bougainvillea were blooming on the hill so I put them in. Basically I just put more color in where I saw it. Added the crosswalk lines with a big brush and have to clean that up before I come out again. Julie hasn't finished her painting from the same location either. We both have at least one more day. Today is Sunday and it was a beautiful day. Not much wind, a good day to paint on Polli's painting.

Day 6, 8-30-12, It's been a year since I worked on this one, she's been standing on the shelf like a good solder, just waiting for today. It was a nice day, a little windy. I heard the mornings are less so. Today I got the two telephone poles darker, worked on the bridge and whited out the crosswalk line because they didn't follow the road right. Basically I did a lot if whiteout work for two hours. The cross-walks in the painting are very time consuming. The road itself is tints of burnt umber cobalt blue, ult. blue and burnt umber and red oxide. The white stripes are a trip all by themselves, they follow the road, the rode is flat in the intersection but goes in four different angels for each direction. That puts a different perspective on each crosswalk. It's very difficult to my way of painting.

Day 7, 9-4-12, 12 to 2:45 PM, Worked mostly on the background. Beautiful day, I changed the painting time to noon, that gives me some light on the polls and lights up the interior under the porch roof.

Day 8, 9-5-12, 12 to 2:45 PM, Windy day, wind is worst than rain. The reason I leave at 2:45 is the school traffic picks up, every time I look up I see a car where I'm looking to see a pattern or color. I worked on the poles, bridge and building. Day 9, 9-16-12, 12:30 to 2:20. My bamboo trees in the middle ground were too bright. They reshaped the the area above the bridge so I brought it up to date. It was a nice sunny day, I enjoyed it. I learned a new word. "velatura". A velatura is a thin layer of opaque paint, spread out so it creates a milky, foggy haze or color that obscures some of what's beneath it, but not all. It's like a glaze, but created using an opaque or semi-opaque pigment rather than a transparent one. I have always used this technique, especially with acrylics to slightly change a dried color. So when I do it with a transparent color it's called a glaze and when I use an opaque color it's velatura.

Day 10, 9-17-12, 12:30 to 2:00, finished the signs and started on the overhead wires. The paint wasn't flowing right, I have to wash the painting because there is oil from my hands on the painting.

Day 11, 10-13-12, I finished the overhead wires, added a car, lightened and put more color in the shadows, only one more sign, the vertical lines in the bridge, the worn out crosswalk lines and the street wire shadows to finish.

Day 12, 3-3-13, They painted their roof red, I like it, it's Mexican. I just carried some red and some brushes and colored it in. I'm still not finished with the wires road shadows or the sign yet.

11-3-13, On this Polly's painting, I have to paint in the sign.
"COME IN AND EAT OR WE'LL BOTH STARVE ! (The "Sign Logo" is twice again as large as the type)
11-9-14, I've been looking at this painting for 3 years and I'm getting close to finishing it. The sign isn't finished but I did add some under-gloss and sanded it rougher so the lettering will go easier, nothing else changed.

Day 13, 1-16-15, Finished the shadow for the overhead wires, added some white velatura glaze to the red roof and am working on the sign now. The bridge looks good as it is.
Day 14, 2-1-15, Finished, first the sign was glazed with polyurethane, then it was fine sanded with 200 grit, then a masking tape was used for the two lines of type. I added some white and ult. blue to the orange type and used a flat ended #1 brush to do the lettering.

Night Next Door Tree. touch-up, 1-1-12, I wanted to do something on the painting, it's just been sitting in the corner waiting also. It's the middle of winter already.
Tip: If you coat your acrylic with white thin paint first and let it dry, the second stroke goes on very smoothly. You can also use it with a watercolor technique and let the background show as white.
   I have another painting I'm working on at the same time, this is something I could never do as I was traveling about in my van. I would start one and finish one. That may be the best way to do it 'cause I'm working on three right now.

I have the dried protea painting which won't change much so I'm not in much of a hurry to finish it. This is the link to the 5 Dried Protea in oil, and my self portrait in oil from a mirror. Since I have been using colloidal silver in my hair it has gotten darker and grows much faster. I can handle both of those attributes, no problem! Here is the oil portrait link, I think I'm finished with it as of last night. Except for the final finish that I have to wait until it's dry before adding.

It wasn't a great jacaranda season, just when the trees were the fullest the wind blew the flowers off. Luckily it was still early in the season so the flowers came back but not as full. This is the link to the 2011 Jacaranda season paintings, all in acrylic.

The third painting is another smaller one, 5.5x7.5 acrylic I'm doing right out my front door of the building next door, I just call it the Yellow Shower Tree with the date and number. It's a two story building I'm painting it in the early afternoon. The shower tree is in the middle of the parking lot and it's loaded with flowers. I want to add the delivery guys car in the painting and it will be finished. The night before last I saw the building at night and the tree was silhouetted against the lit up building. Hmm.. It looked good. Yesterday I took out a larger 15x11 panal and made the drawing. I can paint it in any night after sunset, maybe tonight, or maybe I'll wait for a fuller moon. The 11x15 is 95% finished, on a full moon. I guess that makes four working paintings.