Weathervane Painting in Progress

 Painting in progress- 24" x 36" acrylic on canvas.  Last weekend I carted my easel and canvas outside to draw while Steven built our dining table in the garage.  It was nice to work side by side for a bit, but it got too hot and I retreated back to the AC in my studio.  I sketched most of the composition outside and then began blocking in the background, using colors pulled from an old photograph of my grandma's house.  There was considerably more orange in the wallpaper, but I muted it.

Some background on the subject matter for this painting....I drew my first weathervane about 5 or 6 years ago on a linoleum block.  It was surrounded by a tornado and tiny bird getting whisked around.  At that point in time I had moved from apartment to house to apartment in Clemson approximately six times.  It was a crazy whirlwind of school, graduation, boxes, packing and unpacking.  So much was happening that the block never got carved & it still sits on a stack of woodblocks in the corner of my studio.

Finally, I settled into my final & favorite place for four years until relocating to Texas.  Finding somewhere that felt like home was (and is) very important to me.  The weathervane is a symbol of that, pointing in every direction the wind blows, guiding the way home.  After settling down in San Antonio, the weathervane once again made its way into a small mixed media piece in 2012, now hanging in the nursery of a sweet friend.  For my current painting, I wanted it to appear more realistic so it took a bit of sketching to get it right.  Below are a few shots of the work in progress.

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