Finally Done- World Series

I recently posted about a painting that I decided to attack after getting it back from a show.
It had issues, about a dozen or so cringe worthy issues. I quit way too soon on this one, so I did my best to set up the still life objects again and start painting. I did my best to not worry so much about the exact copying of nature but just made sure to make a good painting.
The main issue was the big empty area in the upper left of the picture. Here is an interesting coincidence for you. I wanted to set up a scene about opening day. I looked for opening day tickets on Ebay, and finally found some the size and shape I was after. I did not buy them, but just copied the photo of the tickets off Ebay, put them in photoshop to fix the color and adjusted them to the exact size (determined by a call the Reds Hall of Fame). I printed them out on card stock to arrange in the still life. Without really thinking about it, only considering the aesthetics,  I printed out the tickets from opening day of 1977.
Months later when I reworked the still life I was trying to find a way to fill the space in the corner, I just happened to remember a team photo my Grandma had purchased for me when I was a kid. It was hanging in the corner of my workshop. She used to take me to games during the time of the Big Red Machine. Oddly, the team photo was from 1976. So, it was meant to be. It worked both compositionally and with the subject matter.
The photo itself might be worth something if my six year old self  had not proudly written my name with a ball point pen across the top. While I reduced the value of the photo with my name, I think the addition of the team photo greatly increased the value of the painting.

Here is the finished picture. 

Opening Day (1977), 18 x 24, Oil on Linen, ©copyright Richard Luschek 2011

I listed the things I changed in the last post. This image is mostly a refined version of that first post. I made a few other changes- making sure the bottle was symmetrical, toning down the color of the hot dog bun and repainting the ketchup.   Rather than buy another hot dog, I looked at a painting by Chardin with bread to get some idea. Generally, I just painted until I was satisfied.

For comparison, here is the painting before the adjustment. I just noticed a new feature on this blog is the ability to flip through images from each blog post if you click on them to enlarge. Do this and you can flip back and forth to see the changes.

Opening Day (1977), 18 x 24, Oil on Linen, ©copyright Richard Luschek 2011

 


This painting is hanging in Cincinnati Art Galleries downtown. I believe it will be showing in their Panorama Art Show next month.