Raymar Panel

"Pacer" by Lesley Spanos. Oil painting on Raymar panel, 6" x 8". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

Watching harness racing at the state fair is like stepping back in time one hundred years.  Makes me feel like I should be wearing a long dress and corset and singing Camptown Races.

The Indiana Pacers basketball team is named after these horses. In the early days of the team, they played in the arena at the fairgrounds, right next to the harness track.

"Candy Apple Reds" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Raymar canvas panel, 12 x 9". Copyright ©2010 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

One of the things I’ll be painting this summer is Fair Food. My diet is very controlled so I’m painting things I’d never dream of putting in my mouth. Like these candied apples, which to me are pretty but deadly. Does anyone really eat these things? When I was a kid, we thought the caramel ones were good, but the red candied apples usually got tossed after a bite or two.

"90 on the last 10" by Lesley Spanos. 9 x 12" acrylic and oil on Raymar panel. ©Copyright Lesley Spanos 2010, all rights reserved. Reference material kindly provided by A Day Not Wasted.

Is it just me, or do other artists spend 90% of their studio time working on the last 10% of the painting? If I painted for ten hours, the piece would look almost finished after one hour. I could slap it into a frame and most people wouldn’t notice it wasn’t “finished.” They might even admire my bold approach and my loose and casual brushstrokes.

Ten minutes in and having fun. Love that lemon!

At thirty minutes. "Hey, this is EASY! Even the metal parts."

One hour into the painting. "Cool. Another thirty minutes on this, then I can get some yard work done and still have time to relax."

The yard work didn’t happen, nor did the open beer in the back yard while listening to Indy 500 cars buzz by at the distant Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (When the wind is right they sound like a swarm of dive-bombing wasps from my house. Locally they black out the race on TV to boost attendance, so we can’t watch it live on TV like the rest of the country.)

Nope, I spent another nine hours on my feet working on the painting, my artist’s insecurity constantly pushing me into fixing “problems” and finessing little details that may or may not enhance the finished work.

In other words, wasted time. Most of that time was spent on the two roses in the upper left. Yes, the roses were a tiny bit better in the end, but not four-hours-on-a-holiday-weekend better:

Finished painting at ten hours.

I don’t know why roses are so hard for me. When I look at the structure of a rose blossom my brain scrambles the signal and I paint the visual equivalent of gibberish. It’s like I’m looking at it but not seeing it. I was using acrylics but finally had to break out the oils so I’d have more blending time. I’ll still probably go back when the paint is dry and add a glaze over the rose on the right to knock it back into the shadows more.

Ironically, this was painted for the A Day Not Wasted May challenge. Lee provided artists with a well-planned and executed reference photo. (See how he shot it here.) Lee invited us to use just parts of his extensive still life setup, and it seems most of us zeroed on in the same composition using the apple, lemon, and jug. My original square composition cut out the dreaded roses, but then I noticed that several people had already done that one, so I went rectangular and added the roses to the top.

In spite of all my whining, a day is not wasted if a lesson is learned. So once again I’m reminded to STOP FUSSING WITH THE PAINT. Overworking the paint is my biggest sin. I need to learn to lay the paint, leave it, and go have a beer.

"Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail" motorcycle painting by Lesley Spanos. Oil on archival 9 x 12" Raymar canvas panel. ©Copyright 2009, all rights reserved.

Fortunately I had my camera with me the day I saw this Harley in a parking lot at the Indiana State Fair.  I’m not a motorcycle person, but this thing was a work of art. It was gorgeous. The chrome was blindingly shiny, reflecting sky and clouds and earth. The painting is small, only 9 x 12″, but I’m imagining how cool it would look painted life-size or a little bigger.

Painting chrome is new to me, so I fussed with it a lot and was never was completely satisfied. I’m starting to understand it better though. Next time I need to be bolder with the strokes, and think of them as abstract squiggles.

Here are some shots I took along the way:

The canvas was toned with a sloppy mix of acrylics using a big brush. I suppose I should make a better drawing right from the start, but usually I just begin painting with minimal pencil guidelines and refine as I go with paint. But really… that wheel is pathetic, and if I’d started with a good wheel, I could have saved an hour of “refining.”

There’s one part of this painting I love – the background! I made a few pastel color mixtures, thinning the paint a lot, then slopped it on casually. It’s loose and colorful, but not so much that it detracts from the bike.

Finally the big shapes were in place and the wheel was looking less wonky, so I was able to start adding details.

The final step was all about making the chrome “pop” by adding the final darkest darks and lightest lights.

I could probably keep torturing this one for hours, but I think I’ll call it done and get back to painting some desserts. Probably something chocolate. I have a new tube of a color called Terra Rosa sitting here, and it almost looks like chocolate right out of the tube. Can’t wait to try it!