Palm Tree Painting

From Beginning To End

I spent hours and hours in front of the easel last week working on a palm tree painting to celebrate and commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the City of Palm Springs.  You saw some of the work in my post the beginning of last week.  And because of that post I had someone ask about the letters and numbers.  They are made from foam and attached to the canvas, so they are raised, and I paint over them.  These letters, along with the multiple layers of paint which are scored though, lend a wonderfully rich texture and dimension to the painting.

The trunk of the palm took quite a bit of detail time.

Laying in the fronds began in a general way with deep greens and blues.  Then it was more detail work to put in high and low lights with a fine brush to complete the fronds.  

While waiting for all of this to dry and living with the painting for a few hours to confirm completion, I painted a small canvas of palms I call 'The Dancing Girls'.  These 'girls' live on a local golf course, have captured my eye, are haunting me, so this was a great way to get in the mood for a larger work.  Depicted here, only three of the 6 or 7 girls....the larger canvas will hold all of them.  On this canvas they are only warming up...just wait until they get onto the larger dance floor!

Dancing Girls

7x5

Ok, back to the canvas '75' to glaze in shadows and deepen some of the background.

My signature is the final step.  The painting is complete.

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