A Portrait of Duke Ellington, Step by Step

I was looking through my blog stats this week, trying to figure out what my readers like. Since I know now that I do actually have readers (however odd that might seem to me), I figured I should figure out what they want to read about, and do more of that.

One of my most viewed posts is the one featuring my abstract cat painting, "In the Garden", along with all my working photos. I am told my process is unusual... I kind of paint backwards, doing the background as a whole first and bringing out the image using the negative shapes. I started working that way years ago, after noticing my work lacked unity. It solved my problem, and it made everything a bit more interesting. Since I have been documenting my process for my Jazz Legends series, I thought I would try something a bit different.

Here I took all my working photos from my Duke Ellington portrait, and put them together in a video. I need to be more careful to take all my pics on the same angle so everything blends together a bit better... maybe a tripod would help. But still, it worked pretty well.

All the photos for this painting, along with my running commentary, are still up over at Global Vernissage if you want to examine them a bit more closely. Anything else you'd like to see? Leave me suggestions in the comments. And feel free to share.