You know how the first week back from a vacation, especially one that is more than a week, is really hard? It’s hard to get up, it’s hard to get back into the swing of things. And you know how a short work week, because of a three day weekend can be really tough because even though there are only 4 work days there is still 5 days worth of work? Those weeks just seem to take it all out of you. My first week back to the day job, was one of those short weeks due to the Labor Day holiday. It was Thursday before I had enough energy at the end of the day to work on projects.
I made progress on a few things this week. I worked on the Halloween House and both paintings. I’m very pleased with that. I even remembered to post a W.I.P. of the Gretsch painting on Instagram. As much as I want to work on a few other projects. Or at least
feel like I should be working on them, I have tried to prioritized projects and have chosen, the Halloween Card, and both paintings as my priorities, at least to the end of the year. It is still my goal to have the Halloween Card on the store on or before Halloween. I would also like to have at least one of the paintings finished by the end of the year, though both is my preference. I think goals can be helpful. I’ll have to see how this works out.
With that, here is the progress on the Halloween House for this week. I got the posts in first. As I was adding them I found I had to pull the edge of the roof back a little. Originally
it covered the steps but that didn’t look right when I added the posts so I adjusted it so that it was at the edge of the porch. I also got the rafters added. That really finishes up the structure of the house front. So it’s on to the finishing touches like a porch light. Which I started. At one point I think I stared at the model of the house for 20 minutes trying to picture in my head the right kind of light to use for the porch light. Once I finally decided on it I then went to the website for one of the hardware stores and started looking through the lighting until I found something I could use as a rough reference. I’ve got more work to do on the light, and part of it is buried in the wall right now. Once it is complete I’ll have to scale it down a little. For now I need it a size that is easy to work on.
And the Gretsch painting. I have started the second layer of black on it. It’s moving along pretty good. I think, since the hardware is all aged, and not super shiny, that after this layer of black, I will add in a base layer of grey. That will start to fill in those areas and then I can go back in and add the additional colors on top of it.
The Ovation painting got some love this week. One of the things that I like about it is that it’s a different color than the Gretsch. It gives me something to work with other than black. Nice to have a little variety since, if you remember, the Gibson piece was mostly black as well. I made a lot of progress on the Ovation piece this week. I was really pleased. Until I started taking the W.I.P. pictures and realized the body wasn’t quite the right shape. I confess, this is the hard part for me when it comes to drawing guitars. Some of the body curves are tricky. So looking at it, I decided now, before I get too much farther, is the time to try to correct that. After a few tries I finally got to this. Now, where I thought I’d finished all the way, side to side, down to that point I have to go back and fill in a bit. Oh well. As I was adjusting the shape, I had to erase some of the guide lines so I could see my adjustments. While I was doing that, where I had already worked, and in the areas that I could, I went ahead and removed some of those guide lines as well. I like being able to see it without the guide lines.
For now my plan is to stay focused on these three projects. I will be sharing more progress posts and pictures as I go.