Ceremony - works in progress

Many apologies for the long hiatus! It is a bit fitting, in a way, that my first post in a while is to show progress on a work that I had put away for a long while. I reopen a neglected art blog with a neglected painting!



I started this drawing on an 8 X 10 piece of illustration board, late in 2010 when I was struggling with technique and wanted to create a piece to experiment with. Other projects got in the way, and this got tucked away in a drawer 'for later.' Well, later is today, and I pulled it out to finish the drawing, and get started with painting.

Below is a color sketch - I'm usually very bad about doing color sketches, but I think this may help the issues I have of plopping down color on a final piece before thinking it through.



I used Painter IX to put in some color ideas and establish the lighting. The 'smoke' will be a bit more challenging with watercolor, but it will be a good opportunity to experiment with technique...which was the initial purpose of this piece to begin with!