How Long Does It Take?

One question Craig gets on a regular basis is “How long did it take you to paint that one?”  There’s no real easy answer to the question, because some works just easily happen in a day, and others take months.  And I could easily say years as well since he walks around the house with his paint brush adding just a little more detail to this one or that one.

But for a more entertaining answer to the question, take a look at this video to see one of his latest paintings unfold.  Normally he would start by sketching the scene on a blank canvas, but there wasn’t time for that at the festival we were attending.  (I think his sketches are a work of art too!)  And he usually has a picture from our own photographs, online images, magazines, or something someone has sent him to get a broad idea for a scene and individual elements.  Maybe you’ll catch that in one or two of the pictures.

You will see the process unfold from the initial blobs of acrylic paint on a blank canvas to a beautiful rendering of “The Cove” at Ft. Fisher, NC.  All but the last two pictures show the progress he made on one day, over the course of 7 hours.  With breaks, of course, talking with the interested bystanders!

What’s happened since then at home is more of the fine detailing and some airbrush too.  He even dabbled some more at our last event – people love to see art being created!  I’m not sure when it will be “done” – I guess when his signature gets added.

And that’s when I jump in.  The next step is to have a high quality digital image made so it can be reproduced on a variety of media and offered for sale.

So, did I answer your question?