July is the month of celebrations. My dear friend, Laura, is getting married July 15th! Yup, the Friday before the festival. That means I miss out on the reception and chance to prep my grid ahead of time. I will be dancing the night away, and lets be honest, drinking too much wine.
I started the prep work for the festival this past week. For the past two months I have agonized over my subject choice. I bounced from one idea to another. I had my selections narrowed down to a bald eagle, sea turtle, or tree frogs. I was set on the bald eagle until I realized that anything with feathers would take too long to draw and shade. I will already be late Saturday morning and have to set up my grid hungover. The basic drawing can't have too much detail to transfer from paper to pavement. I have been obsessed with sea turtles. I enjoyed my sea horses last year so decided to not do a sea themed subject again this year. So no ocean or sky critters. The release of the live action Jungle Book set me on track for a rainforest theme for my piece.
I wised up and got graph paper for the quick sketches. I love efficiency these days.
I sketched tucans, again, this is me refusing to let go of the bird idea. I sketched tree frogs-the poison dart variety are my favorite. I also sketched some jaguars. My husband gave helped me reign in my over-eager tendencies and voted for tree frogs. I did a lion the first year so the jaguar was too similar. Capturing more than one animal would be too adventurous as well.
The sketch on the bottom left is the winner. Three poison dart frogs in various positions on a ginger flower. Colors to be determined. Frogs are great-smooth, spotted, and bright. I will be taking advantage of black tempura on the pavement before chalking. The use of the tempura will help with shading and preserving my precious pastels. Due to the leggy nature of my amphibians, I will be adding height to the asphalt canvas-making this my largest piece to date.
I will be getting the grid measurements set and then the final detail drawing on the small scale. After the drawing is completed I then try to make it to scale. This process involves me turning into a giant child and drawing with sidewalk chalk in my drive way. I will make paper templates of the more detailed parts. When its time to go to the driveway I will document and blog about it in more detail . I did something similar last year and it worked out splendidly.
I'm so excited!!! This is the fourth year as a featured artist and it gets better each year. I can't wait to share it again with you. Stay tuned.
