The boys had their first swim competition on Saturday and it ignited their competitive spirit. We spent the rest of the weekend at the apartment pool swimming laps and practicing their diving starts. I painted this just before calling them in to dinner.
For our second round of covid stay at home orders the boys and I have been trying to use our time wisely. They have spent the last few weeks speed running Super Mario Bros, mastering Punch Out, and boldly adventuring in Zelda while I have been documenting their progress in oil.
This is my first large oil in a while (3ft x 4ft) and I’m much happier with it than previous attempts. All the practice in the field is slowly paying off I guess. This time it was much less a roll of the dice and I got the colors more or less where I wanted them. It helps that the lighting in the living room never changes and the kids don’t move much when glued to their screens.
Oil on Canvas. Mostly Rublev paints from NaturalPigments. Lead titanium white, vermillion, bone black… walnut oil. 4 main passes with scrape downs in-between. A few nights of work over the last month. From life, no photo reference.
I took the boys for a swim and was able to get a quick oil sketch in.
The only upside to this Covid-19 pandemic is that I get to spend a lot more time with my boys. Today, I sketched the twins while they were sitting down for their morning Zoom meetings.
Avoiding C19, people and our iPads, my boys and I escaped the house for a hike up Ring Mountain. It was a lovely day so I started a painting of neighboring Mt. Tam but by the end of an hour the kids had lost their patience and water so I was forced to make a premature retreat to the car. Back in quarantine, I continued to clean up the painting a bit while they continued their adventuring in Minecraft.
Spent the weekend with the boys at the beach. Its fleet week and the air show was pretty inspirational. Here is a little watercolor I did of the Blue Angeles screaming past Crissy Fields.
