How to Eat an Elephant?

As the old joke goes you eat them one bite at a time. This post is an overview to the preparation work for the painting. I've worked on complex, larger paintings in the past and have had some embarrassing failures made all the worse for being large!Almost all were due to lack of planning and preparation. Failure being an opportunity to learn something, I've learned to take time up front and do the work that will more often insure a good start and thus, a better ending.

The drawing preparation will be creating a proportional grid that I can use to scale-up a drawing to the intended size. Drawing the scene on an 16x20 is relatively easy because you can visually take-in the entire surface at one time. Seeing the relationships are simple. Not so with a with the large surface that I'll be painting. The beauty of the grid is that I don't have to work with an 8x11 ft. surface, I can work with a much more manageable 2sq. ft at a time. Below are three charcoals that I've done. The first is the entire drawing. The other two are separate drawings of single grids.



These simple drawings, and others, will help me get the initial image on the canvas accurately.