Sketch of Manchester Window

Sketch of Manchester Window (Originally uploaded by randubnick)

I am showing my oil bar paintings in Manchester, New Hampshire, images of the mills and the Merrimac River. My original plan was seven paintings and I expected to hang the show between the 15th and the 20th of January. A few weeks ago, the date to hang the paintings was moved up to January 8th. Since then, I have been worried about getting all seven paintings done by that date. (Three major snowstorms in the first two weeks of December did not help, either!) But over the winter holidays, I had more time to paint, and by January 3rd, I was a bit ahead of schedule with five paintings in pretty good shape. I was encouraged enough to start the sixth painting, a view from inside a mill building looking out, based on one of my posterized photos. I already had the photo for a reference, but decided to make a digital sketch, too. I wanted to work out the composition for a square format. Besides, the composition was complicated and it made sense to work out basic problems in a digital sketch before I started painting. So before heading to the studio, I made this little sketch on my PDA (handheld computer) with Pocket Artist. I was happy with it, so I transferred the image to the computer and took a print-out to the studio, along with a print-out of the posterized photo). Making a digital sketch really helped me to figure out issues like placement of windows in relation to window blinds, etc., so that later that day in the studio, I was able to quickly establish the composition on canvas. I like the energy of my rough little sketch, and it inspired me to keep going and finish all seven paintings by January 8th (which I did!). Tonight I wanted to post the PDA sketch here, but it was really rough around the edges, quite literally, so I opened the image in Painter and used digital pastel to extend the drawing to the edge of the (digital) page and do just enough basic cleanup to make it presentable. So here it is.