The battalion paintings

I have fourteen other drawings at various stages of sketching that are all in this series. This is my Key Leaders painting. It is the most complete as I work the several different drawings up to this point getting a feel for where the emphasis will be and by extension will determine the amount of high detail, intense color and majority of value contrast will be placed.

This is not a new process to me but one that I have not done on this scale of this many paintings all at once for a very long time. The last time I did this amount of art may have been my senior year of college when I was taking 23 credits each semester and all were art classes. I was looking to be activated with the Air Force at the time and I wanted to get the degree completed with fears that it would be a very long time before I got actually completed with it if I waited. That was a busy time, and now I am remembering the idea that every spare minute must be put to the paintings.

I get to feel again like the juggler on stage with all the spinning plates and try to run around to all the plates and keep them spinning on their respective pole they are on. It is a wonderful feeling to be working so much on something I love to do but it is almost like a new activity and the job has some getting use to that I was not doing before now. I am learning about myself and trying to multi-task with inspirational podcas'ts, fun music, and some language learning. There are a lot of distractions that get in the way like military activities that have to be done, maintaining physical fitness, family needs with a herd of kids always take time, and then just the idea that I haven't done this much art in a long time so getting use to sitting down at a desk for hours is exciting.

I hope to get moving to the next phase of preparing the boards for paint and then PAINTING! Just got to get the needed supplies... I have no idea how to get the army supply system to work for such normally not thought of as military supplies.