Progress on a big scale

I’ve been working on the 40”x60” painting [last posted on March 21] off and on for the past couple of weeks.  I thought I’d share a few of the steps along the way today…

Above left was the status as at March 21st when I last posted.  It seemed to me that I needed a darker path moving through and off to the top left.  After isolating the area to paint by taping off, I used a sponge to apply dark paint through a letter stencil. 

    

I used a similar tape off for the left ribbon but instead of applying the paint with a sponge, I pushed the opaque yellow through the stencil with a palette knife.  By this point I need to re-establish the values and I began with a glaze of cool blue on top and a strong near-white on the largest vertical loop.  A blue loop is next on the right side and a strong dark on the lower third background. 

It occurs to me that explaining the steps in a large painting is a very different thing than a small one [:-).  I think I’ll cut out now and add a few more steps tomorrow.  Cheers!