Publisher's Notes

 I’m happy to report that I worked out a design for my coffee-tea painting.  Here is what I did this week:  I gathered together all the items that I had in my house that were coffee and tea related.   Once they were all together, I looked at the heights and sizes to decide the best way to arrange the items.  Seeing them all together gave me the realization that I was trying to cram a lot of items into one composition.  Also, I saw that the items were a variety of sizes, they went from large (a full size tea pot) to very small (coffee beans).  I concluded that the best surface to design on would be a long one.  This would allow the items to be spaced out next to each other, some overlapping a little, instead of all crammed together into a square or rectangle shape.  But as the items became smaller on the ends, if I used a board that was just a long rectangle there would be too much empty or open space above the items.   So I went though my surface inventory and I chose an MDF surface that is overall 21 inches long.  It has 3 ½ inches on either end that are 5 inches high and the center area (which is fourteen inches long) is 8 ¾ inches high.   I traced the shape of the board on to paper and began sketching the items into place.  As I sketched I used my artistic license by adjusting the sizes of some of the items to make them proportionate to each other.  

Although I like my paintings to have a sense of reality to them I don’t paint realism, so I often exercise artistic license and change things to suit my will.  Speaking of artistic (or creative) license, I intend to paint the items in colors that work together, not the colors that they really are.   I still have to create a transferable line drawing from the sketch.  After seeing the way the items fit on the board, I will slightly change the final line drawing to make a more pleasing composition, moving just a few of the elements a bit.   So my next step, along with completing a final line drawing, is to decide on the color palette and get the surface prepped and base coated.   I hope to have a photo of the final line drawing for you next week.  Keep the coffee coming………Tracy