Let there be light!

…And thanks to Jeff Eide, there now is. While I was at the office, Jeff was kind enough to loan me a key for the lights near the mural, so I’m no longer racing the daylight to paint.

This past Sunday, I tried an experiment. I wanted to see if it was reasonable to try and paint from the one man lift. It was, with some adjustments. I hooked some small buckets over the side and taped them down. They held my thinner, a paint can, paper towels, brushes and reference. The only thing I didn’t think thru was a way to secure a palette, so I held it with one hand and painted with the other. This was OK, but the one thing that I couldn’t do was to back up frequently and check the painting. So, when it was time for a break, I got a critical look at the progress and made mental notes to fix areas when I went back up. So…it was a success to use the lift for painting and it was a heck of a lot easier to set up than the scaffolding. However, I tired more easily, standing for hours and for some reason my feet hurt more standing on the floor of the lift than they do on the scaffolding. But, I will still use it when it isn’t practical for the scaffold.

That said, this weekend, I worked again on the clouds. My goal was to reach the bump out. I did, but the last few feet of clouds are merely roughed in, no shape to them yet. I don’t know if it was the heat (up near the ceiling it is about 10 degrees warmer than down at floor level) or something I ate for lunch, but I couldn’t paint as long as I wanted to due to feeling extremely queasy. Oh well, I will have to make up lost time this coming weekend. I’m excited to finish the clouds and begin the actual horizon. On the other side of the bump out, I have the eagle to look forward to, soaring thru those clouds.