It's been so long that I've worked on this particular project it almost seems strange to say, at long last, it's over. Finished. Stick a fork in me and call me done. Way done. Ready to turn my back and run, not walk, in the opposite direction.
In June of 2009 I started working on this angel for the husband's studio. The green background is the color we painted his walls. He wanted it for the wall behind his keyboard desk, done so it appears to be coming out of the wall and looking down at him as he's sitting in his chair. The original idea was to paint it as trompe l'oeil on canvas, then attach the canvas to the wall in such a way that it blended in smoothly. Great in theory, not so great in practical application.
This thing is big. The angel measures 6'9" from wing tip to wing tip, 3'10" from top of head to bottom fade of gown. Big. The only place we had large enough to hold the canvas was the dining room wall ... and there this canvas has stayed, thumb tacked up and in constant view, for the past nineteen months. I can't begin to express just how sick and tired I am of looking at it. I think the word 'loathsome' comes reasonable close.
This finished image is done entirely in graphite, with white conte' pencil for the highlights. It didn't start out that way. Actually, is started with black acrylic paint and glazing medium with a completely different angel pieced together in Photoshop from several images I found on the internet. Spent months on that and was frustrated beyond belief. The image was all wrong, had to correct for proper shadowing/highlights, completely change the hair and gown, etc, etc, etc. It was a mess from the get-go.
Then the husband said it might look cool if it had color ... like she was a statue and then 'coming to life' as she was emerging from the wall. I painted over and started again, trying to incorporate color. Months, months, months. Mess, mess, mess. By now, I was ready to rip it from the wall and set fire to it. Believe me, I gave that serious consideration.
From the beginning, I knew the reference material I was trying to work from was woefully inadequate, to put it mildly. But I thought I could make it work. I was so wrong. At my breaking point on the second attempt I told the husband he was going to have to help me take real photos of me, dressed up, with correct lighting, etc. and I was going to start over with that. Ugh! Whole 'nuther kettle of fish trying to get him to take the photos that fit the image I had in my head! Three attempts and about eleventy dozen photos later we got some I could work with ... after more of that Photoshop tinkering stuff.
I pulled out my enlarger and traced it off for the third time. By now I had decided I was NOT going to attempt it again with paint. I wanted a 'part of the wall' feel to it and knew I had to use the background green color as my neutral tone. That left black for shadowing and white for highlights. I'm not experienced enough with charcoal to go there, so all that was left me was graphite. Daunting to consider creating basically a pencil drawing 4' x 7'. Kind of like vacuuming a football field with a Dust Buster.
Thing is, I knew I could do it, knew it would take a lot of time, and knew I was also really hanging on by a thread at even having any desire whatsoever to begin again. I was never really thrilled about doing this project to start with, but the husband had asked for it. So, I started on this third version, I think, sometime in May or June of 2010. It was around this time the husband decided he didn't want it attached to the wall after all - just in case we ever had to move he would like to take it with him. Of course, this means the canvas will now have to be stretched and gallery-wrapped onto stretcher bars like a regular painting. With the gallery wrap, we won't have to use a frame, just hang it.
When I started, I had made myself a promise that I wouldn't paint anything else until this was finished. Of course, I had no idea I'd just chained myself to the dinning room wall for the next nineteen months or I would never, ever have made that promise. No siree. Nuh-uh. Nope. No way. It's been torture. I've had a bazillion ideas for paintings going through my head and haven't been able to do a damn thing about it. Well, you can bet your sweet pa-toot this ol' gal is gonna' to be making up for lost time. I'm going to be buried in my studio for ever. Watercolors, here I come!!! Acrylics on small canvases! Woo Hoo! Crafts and sewing and all kinds of fun and adventure will be happening in my little corner of the world.
As for the angel, I'm going to get some graphite spray fixative, spray that ol' witch a good coat or two, take her off the wall, roll her up, and lay it in the floor in the husband's studio. He gets the chore of taking it to the framer to get it stretched, and he get the chore of getting it up on his studio wall. And, I'm even thinking I'll let him finish painting the green on the canvas after it's wrapped. 'Cause, ya' know, I'm done.
Namaste', y'all ...
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