Drawing of Vicarious Vacation

Vicarious Vacation - 24"x36" with most of the drawing painted in

Detail showing grid and pencil drawing

I spent about 8 hours yesterday and today drawing in my latest painting. For now we are calling it Vicarious Vacation. I started by toning the canvas with an acrylic yellow ochre thinned with medium and water so that when I start painting in, the lights and darks will both show up. Though I plan to be rather loose with much of the background, I am still tight with the drawing. I find that the looser I get, the more important accurate drawing becomes. Most of the figures, (couples) in the picture were very grainy in the reference pictures because they were extremely small and had to be blown up. In the drawing I had to do a lot of interpretation from my knowledge of anatomy. I am happy with the way it is progressing. I will not get a lot more done on it for another week. The basic drawing was done in pencil. I have then gone over it with raw umber oil paint made very thin with turps. When I have finished the drawing, I will establish lights and darks using a monochrome of raw umber and white, and then block in basic colors using oils made very thin using turps.