The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I got the lower part of the torso done today. Tomorrow I’ll finish the top half. So far I like it better than my previous work. It’s a little easier to render a yellow suit as opposed to a white one like in the last painting. I’ve really gotten into…

Today I worked on the right leg of the left figure. It’s slow going with all these wrinkles and folds to paint. Pretty much two thirds of the painting is wrinkles and folds (the boy between the men being the only figure with skin visible). The goggles and face shield…

I still don’t like that right boot and need to tweak it some more but I finished painting the left leg. Tomorrow I will do the right leg and fix the boot. It took me nearly an hour and a half to get that one side done. I am still…

Today I did an hour of painting. I finished the feet of both the suited figures. It was quite an enjoyable hour and I listened to Mansfield Park on Audible while I painted. Tomorrow I will tackle the legs of the left figure. I managed to go on Instagram yesterday…

Today I put in the background. It’s coming along and I’m excited to start painting the figures. It’s going to get boring, I know, painting all those folds in the PPE suits, but I’ll ride the motivation while I have it. Tomorrow I plan to start on the left and…

Today I finished the outline on my canvas and I’m so glad to be done with that step. Drawing from a grid is boring, time consuming, and awful. I must do it in order to transfer the sketch onto the painting surface. If I try and paint without a drawing…

Today I took a Ritalin and just powered through most of the grid drawing on the canvas. I needed to get as much as possible all in one go because it’s like ripping off a bandaid, the longer you take, the worse the pain and I truly find this part…

Today I continued to draw the outline on my canvas. It’s a little progress but some progress is better than nothing and I can’t get myself to do more than a small portion at a time of this task. It’s incredibly boring. This is probably going to be the hardest…

I have decided to take on two painting projects at the same time, one easier, the other hard, because I predict that the current one I started is going to be overwhelmingly difficult and boring at times (a lot of creases and folds). I’ll need a break and something more…

I gridded my drawing and the canvas today. Tomorrow I will begin drawing on the figures, and I’ll divide that into three days of work because each person is a lot of lines and the process of transferring the drawing onto canvas is painstaking and time consuming. You have to…

Today I started my new painting by tracing the image on my iPad. Next I will grid it, grid the surface I’m painting on, and finally draw the lines onto the canvas and outline them in acrylic pen. I use un-stretched canvas from pads because it’s easier to store (I…

I finished my latest PPE painting. It’s not my favorite that I’ve done but it’s completed. My next one is going to be quite a challenge (even though this last one turned out a lot more challenging than I had anticipated). It’s going to be 16 x 20 inches and…

I finished the mask and head of the figure in my PPE painting yesterday and did the folds of the outstretched arm today. It’s coming together better than I had hoped and I’m actually starting to like it. The glove looks better with the figure filled in behind it and…

I can put my braids up across my head now. My hair is just long enough to do it. My goal is to get my hair long enough to wrap my braids around my head like a crown. I’ve not dyed it since I cut off all the damaged areas…