A good start to the painting

I thought it might be fun to take photos of a work in progress. I'm determined to get Eliza's Copper Penny up on Amazon within the week so I started working on the cover painting yesterday. I started by asking my husband to pose so I could have a picture of the body. I kinda messed up the proportions on Julia's cover so I knew I needed to start with a much better photo. Julia's Golden Eagle was made up from a whole bunch of images. Oh well, it still works but I knew I could do better. Anyway, here's the start in progression.

After sketching it first in chalk, I start by doing the background. I eventually ended up with the hat too tall so I had to add more sky. Bummer but it's okay. Anyway, I worked on the face next. I sorta did this from my own imagination and my husbands photo and ended up with a hero that looked a little like my son and a little like my very first boyfriend. 

I didn't want the shirt to be all black so I added some reds in it. The shirt took the longest to paint due to the folds. And the black I used was old so a bit sticky. It spread nicely as long as I had white to go with it.

I love the immediacy of acrylic but I think I could make it look more photo realistic if I used oils. But I'm still happy with the result. For the various coins, I've been using photoshop. I didn't want to use the real thing as I though just a vague idea of the coin would be better. I'm hoping each book will also have a sense of the various seasons. This one is for spring, Julia's Golden Eagle is for Fall and Sarah's Brass Token is for Summer. When I get around to doing Kaitlin's Silver Lining, I'll try to capture winter. As that book isn't as tightly connected as these first three, I'm not in as big of a hurry to get it out. With my schedule, I'm hoping for March when I have spring break to work on it.

I'm working hard to revamp and tighten the original. I don't make big changes; I just want to take out some of the redundancy. If all goes as plans, my goal is to have it up tomorrow, but....

Sailing

I went sailing this weekend. Well, not really. We went to the boat but the weather wasn't condusive to sailing as a front had moved in, but the weather proved perfect for writing. I went into the cabin, curled onto the couch, plugged in my laptop and finished polishing Sarah's Brass Token. Today we planned to sail in the morning, but no wind made us change our minds. Still, it was a fun weekend at the lake. Very relaxing -- and I got a lot done on my wip.

Not only that, but my neighbor graciously posed for pictures so I could paint the cover. I'm stoked. I hope to have the cover done by next weekend. Once that happens, I can format the book and upload to amazon.

I'm waiting to have this one done before I upload, Texas Forged. In the meantime, I'm reading back through to polish more. I can't wait to share this story with you.