Vesuvio part 2

Tomorrow's schedule is quite full, leaving me today to get a bunch of things done.  (finished all my school stuff yesterday, so I don't have to worry about that) I spent some of yesterday looking up visual references for my latest block.  For example, the original color photograph on the monitor shows more than the printed version on paper I have, so I made a few adjustments to my block sketch.  The view of the ceiling fan in my photo is partly blocked, so I simply looked on the web for images of ceiling fans, picked one that seemed similar, and used that as a reference.  When doing a big figure or portrait piece, I insist on working from life, but for small characters in a relatively small piece (like a supermarket print), I have no problem borrowing from other sources, such as video freeze frame or photographs, or even just making it up. I do have a source for images of people sitting in chairs at tables- me.  Over the years I have taken hundreds of photos for various blogs, and at Belmar we created small cafe tables many years ago, which they put out at most events.  It's my job (unpaid) to photograph these events, so I just had to go through all this on the computer, and do quick pencil sketches of suitable people, to be added later.  Also took a lot of color notes, but that's not relevant until after this is cut and proofed.

I began that process today, when I got to the Studio in the late morning. Looked at my block, the composition of the original photo, and chose several figures that seemed like they could be fit in.

These are just rough sketches, all of which need much refining, but I think they work.  Plus I still need to add a few more, so I'll have to search my files for figures that could fit in the spaces I still want to fill, or just make them up myself.