Everyone and their mother is watching the Super Bowl tonight, at least it seems that way to me anyway. Me? I’m searching how to find the last missing chicken (or in the parlance of the game, cucco) in the “Flown the Coop” side quest in Breath of the Wild. I’m starting my third playthrough in preparation for the sequel, which is releasing in May.
Our house isn’t very large, so every now and then the strange sounds of commercials (right now, I’m hearing tunes that sound a bit like The Safety Dance) waft through from the TV room every now and then.
Aside from playing BotW, I’m also planning my next art project. I try to get in some type of art activity every single day. That doesn’t mean that I’m drawing every day. Sometimes I simply get my palette and paper or canvas set up. My newest project will be another self-portrait, but this time I’ll use a canvas board and water-soluble oil paints. My first steps are to prepare my canvas by painting it over with gesso. Gesso gives me a smoother surface to work on; I like the texture that canvas gives, but sometimes the untreated canvas is too much, and my pigments drag across the surface in jagged and uneven way. The Gesso helps smooth out the laying down of my colors. I’ll let it dry overnight. After that, I’ll get started on the underpainting, and I’ll use burnt sienna for that. That will allow me to sketch in the basic shapes and add some of the areas where the biggest shadows will be.
For this painting, I'll try again to sketch with the paint and not start with a pencil sketch. We'll see how that goes.
I find this prep for art so much more entertaining and relaxing than sitting in a room full of people yelling at the TV screen.
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