Workin’ on my wolverine painting. This is…challenging. Being that it’s two feet by four feet on masonite, I am reduced to rather novel methods of working on it, such as propping it up on the couch and kneeling on the floor, draping it across the table and trying to prop up the sagging edges so that my washes don’t run and drip onto the floor, and occasionally just standing up and holding the pesky thing up with my already abused left arm while slathering paint. Given the size, if it comes out as well as I’m hoping, I can’t in good conscience charge less than a thousand dollars for it, and I’m earning every cent. I could really use an easel. This, of course, is in addition to the challenge of actually painting such a thing–I’m working with a technique lifted from wildlife artist Seery-Lester, whereby one forgoes opaque paint entirely, and instead lays down gesso and glazes washes over the top of it, then glazes darker washes to push it back, then more gesso, then more washes, etc. The technique is a bit more like painting with watercolors since all the washes are very thin and transparent, and the gesso is…gesso-ey. I’m actually more comfortable with working this way, and the end result (like the camel and takin) works out much better than my previous acrylic attempts at fur, which were regrettable. At the moment I’m working on ground cover and plants, which is both harder (in that I haven’t done it this way before) and easier (in that unlike fur, it’s harder to screw up–plants are haphazard anyhow.) We’ll see how it goes. The whole process is a lot less anal-retentive than the usual painting methods, whereby every single possible line is outlined in advance, and leaves a lot more room for glop and improvisation. And I’m all about glop.