Great Day for Painting - and CzQ

First, the sunshine was gorgeous today.  Second, I went to studio class.  Third, I went to crazy quilting.  It was a glorious day!

Yesterday I talked at length about preparing to paint, and today I did so.  Here is day one of my latest work:

While it is clearly in the very beginning stages, I decided to share this New Orleans street scene because of all my chatter yesterday.  Now you can see how the drawing is transferred to the lumpy, bumpy surface of water color paper.  You can also see the yellowy lines around the buildings, the car, and a few other areas; that's the masking medium (aka "friskit").  It's even more evident if you click on the painting and see it enlarged. When I rub the friskit away, the area that it covers will be the same as the unpainted surface you see now.

The trolley is turning on to Canal Street, but liberties have been taken.  The scene - without the trio on the left - is very similar to a photograph I took.  The background buildings are similar to what is there, but not completely accurate.  Colors have been changed to make the painting work better and architecture  and street corner simplified to make the trolley and the people the main attractions.  The three people on the left are from a different photo, different area of New Orleans and were moved to this painting to get the look I wanted as well as improving the composition.

There's not enough on the crazy quilt block yet to make it worth showing here, but it will come soon - I hope.  More work is slated for tomorrow in the kitchen so we'll have to wait and see how much of anything will be accomplished in my studio.