Added 1 new A* page:Just in case you somehow missed me blathering about it yesterday, the biggest watercolor painting I've ever done is fresh up for auction on eBay. Notice how its 18" x 24" bulk sits commandingly in this chair:
Isn't it lovely? Some lucky bidder will be setting aside a place for it once the auction ends next Tuesday.
~~~~~~~
This next sunrise, at Cape Canaveral, is the time for Exploration Flight Test 1, the first test flight of NASA's intended-to-go-to-Mars-eventually Orion spacecraft, specifically the aluminum/lithium alloy Crew Module (aka the "Command Module") built by Lockheed Martin, due to be carried up to a short two-orbit unmanned flight by the triple-gold-barreled funky-looking and currently highest capacity rocket in the world, the Delta IV Heavy; the Space Launch System is the rocket intended to do the heavy lifting on full bore Orion missions, but it's still in development.
Hm, the EFT1 Wikipedia page I linked up there says this is also a test of the Orion Service Module, but that can't be right, because the contract for the ESA to build it was only signed in recent months, and it isn't due for its first test flight until 2018's Exploration Mission 1, which will also be the first test flight for the Space Launch System ("SLS").
Update 1/18/15: A reader got me on track of looking into the service module situation a little more closely, and it seems that what EFT1 had was a "mockup" service module—some sort of stand-in for the real deal. Googling hasn't found me an official confirmation of that, but one such mockup is pictured on page 3 of this NASA pdf from 2013.
~~~~~~~
Ended up kind of trying to paint a lot darker than I usually have been in watercolors in today's page, to get the foreground to stand out from the background; I guess I haven't done a watercolor painting this saturated since the very early days where I was slathering the stuff on like mustard—but since then I've learned that the way to get colors darker is not to lay it on thick like paste, which takes a heck of a lot of watercolor ($$) and is hard to work with, but to apply the watercolor in layers, which somehow ends up much darker than if you had applied an equal amount of watercolor in a single coating. I guess because with layers the particles of pigment can stack up on top of each other? Anyway, it works. : )
Another thing I did here was adding colored highlights—those blue blips along the horizon in the background. I first thought of this last week when I needed to apply a pink patch over a darker patch of watercolor I'd placed accidentally; not sure why it took me this long to think of it, but basically I just mix some watercolor with the white ink I normally use for stars and corrections, and voila, I have a light-colored paint that can go on top of watercolor and lighten it, whereas watercolor on its own pretty much only darkens. So that's handy.
~~~~~~~
Today I absorbed a tasty slice of carrot cake while casing the site of my *next* art show, which will be right after the current one (at Julia's of Wallingford) ends, at the beginning of January. If you're familiar with Seattle's kitschy cafes you might be able to guess where it will be!
|
