Halloween Painted Box and an Interesting Discovery

I wasn't able to post to my blog this past Sunday.  Once again we were without electricity due to severe thunder storms in our area.  We were without power for a couple of days.  Much of our time was spent cleaning up the debris left by falling branches.  We had the top ripped out of another one of our poplars.  But I'm back now and ready to get back to the painted boxes.

I have missed working on Halloween projects.  My projects this year have been about everything but Halloween.  I decided that taking the time to make a Halloween themed box would help keep me from digressing from my next project.  More on that in the coming Sunday blog.

As usual, my painting and drawing skills lag behind.  I just keep reminding myself that continued practice will eventually yield better results.  Everything is out of proportion and the perspective is all wrong, but it was fun to paint a Halloween picture.

The interesting discovery came when I was finishing the box.  I had used the box that had been base coated in Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber.  After I had finished the painting on the front, I decided to finish the box off by painting the rest of it in orange and black diamonds.  I painted the box with Cadmium Orange.  The color brightened up the color, but it was so translucent that the underpainting showed through.  It wasn't what I wanted, so I decided that I would go ahead and paint the black and then go back and repaint the orange.  I laid down painter's tape in a grid and painted the exposed area with black paint.  When I removed the tape, the orange showed through.  I had not noticed it when the whole box was orange, but against the black, the orange parts of the box look as if it is on fire!  Unfortunately, it does not photograph well.  But, in person this box looks like it is blazing!  I decided not to repaint the orange.

For a long time I have been frustrated by trying to paint fire in a realistic manner.  Now I know what the problem is.  Hopefully it will improve some future painting.

Next blog post will be about the new project.