I was live painting at Hangar 1018 on Friday where there was a costume party with music, dancing, painting good times and I used the energy of the event as an excuse to block in a painting based on my composition from Jumbos. The costumes were awesome, people really got into it, (I was a zombie Bob Ross) the music was great and it was fun to dance and paint! I used acrylic which I've really gotten into lately, but I use them like I use oils alla prima so you can't really tell the difference, which is nice because I can make a seamless transition to oils when I want! The speed of the acrylic drying makes experimenting with glazes and transparent paint fun too. There's a little more "stuff" to bring with acrylic, but it's kinda worth it. with this painting at this stage I'm most interested in getting the canvas covered and establishing the overall "grand scheme" value structure so everything is "approximately right on" which you can see when comparing the first digital sketch and the painting so far. From my first sketch, I could go and get models, pose people in just the right place and angle and eyeline, take photos and reference shots for the figures and details in the composition and head in the direction of painting ever more realistically... but I feel like who cares? How is that going to make it better? I like a certain amount of 'rightness', especially in the feeling of light, and I absolutely love to paint/draw/compose from life, but I just can't give up my love for and pursuit of physical expression through paint and painterliness itself. This seems to condemn me to a life of broke fascination! hahahaha! Here's the painting at the moment, 24 by 48