Quilt Museum Project, The Basics

Link to all related posts here.

I will explain my current project (as revealed here) as the process goes, as well as share some of the behind-the-scenes pictures.

For a big project, what you first need is a space to do your work and supplies. I just happened to have a large table, and a drawer-set full of art supplies.

[Yes, those are chalkboard walls]

From the beginning, I knew I needed to stock up on paper. For the last project, my supply budget was pricier, so I ended up using huge sheets of 300-lb. watercolor paper. This time, I figured I could scale it down on the costs and be more careful with the paints. I just had to figure out how many sheets to get--and this required measurements of the space in the museum, as well as those of the rendered buildings.

One problem with this was, even though I photographed progress on my last street-view project, I forgot to take / save meticulous notes on dimensions within the art. So, I had to do some sleuthing: I knew the painter's tape I used was 1" wide, so I measured, and did calculations from there.

[Resized the images on screen to match and calculated dimensions--this took a while]

Next, one needs reference pictures to work from. Since this current project is basically larger version of one I had done before, the reference photos and sketches still work.

[Rough sketches with pen and some notes]

Once I got the paper and figured out the "work space" on the sheets, then came the fun part of sketching guidelines, and then actually roughing out the buildings from references. This is what is taking a lot of time--some buildings are wider than one sheet, so drawing between two pieces I have to make sure everything will line up in the end result.

In reality, these two buildings are no where near each other. While saving paper, though, these two were the perfect size to fit on the same panel without encroaching on the margins to help with painting in the future.

Essentially, this is where I am in the project. Once I have all the pencil roughing done for all the panels, then I will ink each one, and finally paint. Keep an eye out for updates--I hope to really get creating in the next week or two.