More portrait stuff/Rockwell

 

 

Well, I wasn't done with the double portrait, after all. Not technically, anyway.  My customer loved it, but I noticed that a little paint was flaking off in the bottom left corner. Some of the green had flaked away, revealing the white-primed panel beneath. That absolutely should not happen!

 

I probed the area with an X-acto knife, and surmised that my thinned-down acrylic underpainting, with only a little thinned-down oil paint on top, was the problem there.  I decided to facilitate mechanical binding.

 

To that end, I scored the area with my knife, then applied another, slightly thicker layer of green paint with no medium or thinner added to it.

 

 

 

Last night, just for fun, I set up my new French easel.  Mom and Dad found it at a yard sale--along with dozens of tubes of student-grade acrylics, lots of brushes, and five or six palette knives.  Very, very nice!  I've never had a French easel before.  It ought to be very useful for plein air painting.

 

 

Last Sunday, Kim's cousin Matt came to town for a brief visit.  We went to the Kentucky Derby Museum and to the Louisville Slugger Museum.

 

I'm not a baseball fan, but I think I actually enjoyed the Slugger Museum more.  It was just more interesting, and more engaging.  It also had a Norman Rockwell exhibit, which I really enjoyed.

 

As a child, I liked Norman Rockwell.  Then at some point (around the time I started college?) I started really disliking Norman Rockwell; I saw him as too hokey, cute, and sentimental.

 

In recent years, though, I've started appreciating him more, and now I like him again.  The exhibit at the Slugger Museum was great, including not just reproductions but also many original drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings.  They were a lot of fun to look at; Rockwell had a level of craftsmanship and skill that I can only dream of.