Glasgow Tram - Acrylic Project - 3

 I recall that I did say last week that I thought that I was unlikely to be able to find time to work on the tram in a school week, and I was right. Yeah, it's a pain, but painting trams doesn't pay all the bills (yet) and teaching English does.

Here's where we finished on Sunday:-

It seemed a convenient place to stop, and I'd guess it took between 6 and 7 hours to get this far. The plan when I took up my tools this morning was to firstly sketch in the rest of the outlines of the windows, paint in the remaining shop front - paint a background colour for the walls between the windows, paint in the frames, paint in the brickwork, paint in the details in the windows, do any remedial work necessary on what we did last time, and finally, if all else had gone well, paint in the roadway shadows and cobbles, sign and date the whole thing.

This is my first progress photo today

By this time you can see that I'd sketched the outlines and then immediately painted in the background colour for the walls. My feeling was this - if I painted these before I did the remaining shopfront, then the walls could dry while I was doing the shopfront, and it would be easier to paint on frames and bricks on dry paint. By the way, at the top of the photo is just shadow cast through the window by the bright morning Autumn sunshine. 

Having now completed the shop fronts I was just starting to be able to visualise the finished painting. This is a dangerous time for me. In the early stages of painting, I tend to think what I do is rubbish and want to give it up and start again. Experience has taught me the value of patience and perseverence. However this often gives way to a stage of believing that the current work is going to turn out to be the best thing I've ever done. This is invariably equally untrue. You might also notice that as well as finishing the shop fronts, I've just added some colour inside what will become the windows. 

I've painted this typically scottish kind of brickwork several times before, most notably on painting of Glasgow, but also one of Edinburgh. I love painting this kind of brickwork, the tones ranging from warm honey to bournville dark chocolate, with undertones of purples and greys. Hopefully you can see what a difference it makes when the windows have been painted in as well.

Not far off from a finish now. This is where I stopped for lunch, after about 3 hours ' work this morning. The building is complete now, obviously. Can you notice what else I did between this picture and the last? Well, firstly I lightened the green at the front of the tram, and a couple of patches n the side. I like the fact that the tram is so bright and vibrant against the more restrained building and shop fronts, but I thought it could stand to be just toned down slightly. Also, if you look underneath the tram I've done just a little work adding more shadow, and I've painted the tram lines. 

I could have stopped there. However, I do think that without the shadows on the roadway, the poor old ar looks as if it's floating somewhat. So here's the finished picture, after I put the shadow on the roadway, and added some definition to the cobblework.

It's far too soon for me to give a realistic appraisal of my own work here - it'll take at least a week before I'll be able to be at all objective, but I certainly think it's good enough to put up for sale - and that's the next thing I shall be doing with it.  At the very least I think it fares well be comparison with two of my other Glasgow street n' tram scenes - although to be fair, both of these were 16x12, not 20x16 like this one.