About a month ago, I'd been giving into sitting in isolation for 10 or 20 minutes at a time, trying to come up with an idea for a painting... which never works, BUT after one such session, after again unsuccessfully perusing the brain for any scrap of an idea or compelling combination of ideas, I turned, as one does... to YouTube. Browsing, viewing, clicking... I happened upon Rick Steve's Europe series, most episodes of which if you're interested, happen to be view-able for free through YouTube.
I began to watch his exploration and tour highlights of the city of Venice, which gave me some ideas, but nothing spoke to me in that episode ... for Venice. It was in the viewing of the great Italian city, which reminded me of my love for travel, and also my past trip. While having not seen the actual grand and breathtaking Fjords of the Western Coast of Norway, I nevertheless had my idea. I would make a large love-letter piece to Norway.
As far as inspiration, I fell into a desire to make an epic Fjord landscape view, with dramatic lighting, a Viking ship, and even... trolls in the distance. The piece would mimic the work of the Hudson River School landscape painters of the 1800s, with their use of texture, space, other-worldly light.
I immediately ran out and bought a large 36" by 24" canvas... which sat wrapped for a few days... then a few more... Finally, I tore off the plastic wrap, and stared at the pristine primed white canvas. I knew where I would put it in the house, and I knew it had to have a fancy ornate frame to compliment the Hudson River School visual I was going for, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to sketch on it... Paralyzed with fear, I took to the Surface Pro 3, and sketched, and erased, and sketched. A few nights later, I colored it, fleshing out a scheme that pleased me. But there was still a hindrance, a block from touching the canvas itself.
A co-worker and friend of mine enlightened me to the possibility of using a projector. I realized, this might be an expensive investment, for such a little step in the process (I would only use it to trace the general layout and shapes, and would fill it in later). But I made the leap.
Soon I had a small pocket-sized Phillips HDMI projector, and was able to use it to quickly trace the general composition from the Surface Photoshop document onto the canvas with pencil. It sure beat drawing a grid to transfer (as I've woefully done in the past).
The lines are faint, but that's where I am today...
The next step I suppose will be to fully render-out the details in pencil, indicate some major lights and darks, and once finished with that, I will take a cue from Donato Giancola and lay on a clear coat of acrylic, setting the pencil, but also providing a thin base which will allow the white of the canvas to peak a bit through the acrylic underpainting, as well as the layers of oil paint I put on later.
I'm still vexed. Do I have the strength?
UPDATE EDIT :::: (8/27)
I reworked the composition a bit, with a hint more depth in terms of lines, direction, and a hint more detail. The trolls were gargantuan, so I reduced their size a tad (in looking at photo references of fjords, I'm beginning to see how they are actually more vast and wide and... tall than I had even originally assumed, even 80 foot tall trolls would be dwarfed by the landscape). I also added some large moss-covered, and... troll-moved rocks on the right-hand coastline.
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