House as of June 18

House as of June 18
Originally uploaded by randubnick.

This is the latest version of the painting I am doing for my friends. Since the last posting, I have painted the foundation and front step, but concentrated mostly on trying to find the right color for the brick. The color I was using was too red, but what was the right color? So for the past few days, we have all tried to figure it out. My friends tried to find out whether the brick been painted, was it the same color as the back part of the house, and why doesn't mortar show up in the old photos? Meanwhile, I pulled digital photos of the painting into Painter IX and tried modifying the color with digital watercolor, and e-mailed the results to my friends. With my phonecam, I took pictures of brick houses, steps, and sidewalks in Beverly, and e-mailed the pictures to my friends. It was becoming an obsession. Two time zones west, my friends traveled to the old house and took photos of remaining brick inside(the exterior brick is now covered with siding). I have received e-mails of brick walls and even brick fragments. There is even a piece of brick from the house on its way to me by mail right now, no kidding! It's all been lots of fun, and opening my e-mail to find still more brick has sometimes made me laugh so hard I couldn't speak. But a break-through came the other day when one of my friends compared the color of the brick to Red Rocks (we all grew up in Colorado). So today I repainted the brick and we seem to be getting there, but it still needs to be more orange, so tomorrow I will put an orange glaze over the brick (something I tried out digitally). I still need to paint shingles, vines, roses, but I am already wondering what I will do for fun when the painting is finished. . . .