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I generally refrain from posting images of paintings in progress unless the painting is finished and the photos along the way serve as useful demonstrations of the process. Believe me, it is entirely possible to destroy a painting with a last minute irretrievable boo boo. 

But this morning I was struck by a moment of what the hey. So here you go.

My last blog entry discussed a study I did for the concept of Monumental Change, addressing the long overdue removal of Confederate statues from Richmond's Monument Avenue. That was a quickie done to explore the concept. In fact, since that painting was completed, statues of Stonewall Jackson, Jeb. Stuart, Matthew Fontaine Maury and several other traitors have been unbolted from their pedestals and hauled away to cool off in a warehouse for deliberations regarding their ultimate fate. Robert E. Lee and his horse (who I just learned is not Traveller) remain on their graffiti bespangled pedestal for the time being; the result of lawsuits filed by the two or three people who haven't read the memo that it's 2020. Notwithstanding, they too will ultimately educate folks about slavery, the Civil War, and Jim Crow in some other, more appropriate, venue. We'll just have to be patient for a while.

Anyhoo - the painting.

The image placed at the entrance of the blog shows the results of the first painting session, the purpose of which was to provide the underpainting of the pedestal. Hopefully the composition will work out, since most of Lee will be fading into the mists of time, leaving the top of the painting empty sky.

During the second painting session, I began the surprisingly challenging task of graffiti-ing the pedestal. The real life graffiti has plenty of F-bombs and disparaging remarks about police sprinkled in with all the "BLMs" and "George Floyds" and "Say His Names." A few profanities will remain in the finished painting, but since I'm very rarely interested in capturing details fully you'll have to look hard.

The third painting session focused on the sky component of the background. Can't say I'm satisfied, but I'm not worried. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Sometimes you have to let the paint dry before you try to tweak the stuff you believe needs tweaking. This serves two purposes. One, it keeps you from making things worse by smearing wet paint into mud. Two, the time involved for paint to dry allows you to look at stuff with fresh eyes. Stuff I think isn't working may look just fine to me in a few days.

There will at least three more painting sessions. First: painting the people milling around the base of the statue along with the background greenery and houses. Second, finishing the sky. After that will come the most challenging phase: figuring out what needs to be done, and not done, to achieve the finished product.

Plenty of time to ruin it with an irretrievable boo boo, so...fingers crossed.