Acrylic painting 22x15, Polly'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 Polly's painting.

Night touch-up, 1-1-12, I wanted to do something on the painting, it's just been sitting in the corner waiting, and waiting. It's the middle of winter already. I drew the overhead lines heaver with dark pencil, figuring what the heck, graphite is a permanent pigment and it's much faster than a brush. I touched up some strokes to make them look like they were perfect the first time and any white spots that were out of place.
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.