Next, I moved on to the imagery inside the wings. (Until that is finished, I won’t know how “contrasty” to paint the eagle’s head, beak, tail and feet. I don’t want those parts to overpower the wing images.) I started by covering up any leftover transfer sketch- ing with layers of Brite White from the first bottle I mixed. Taking my resized copies of the original artwork, I placed each piece inside the wings to arrange the best layout for the available space. I taped them in place, slid a small portion of trans- fer paper beneath, and traced out the major ele- ments such as the mountain lines, hidden Statue of Liberty, little eagle, lake border, and dominant snowfields. I moved the copies to the side and taped them where I could easily refer to them. You might notice that the sketch in the right wing doesn’t match the image from the ad taped above it. Upon researching the wing images, I realized


that the ad my customer brought me really mish mashed the original painting, and that a lot of great details were lost in a muddy fog on that side. I decided to use the original version instead of simply copying the ad. One thing I could’ve done to save myself a little time later was masked off the upper “arms” of the wings to protect from overspray while working on the scenery. (This area required touching up near the end.)


Using 4282 Brite Blue (discontinued) and Brite White with a little 4274 Yellow (discontinued) and Medium Gray, I mixed up a slightly gray aqua blue for my back- ground sky color. (You could use 4211 Caribbean Blue with a little 4213 Process Blue, Medium Gray, and Brite White instead.) I sprayed this on, being careful not to cover up any mountain tracings, blending the sky into the light parts of the feathers. I ran the hairdryer across to set it. I then used some of my leftover “dirty” high- light color and added just a few drops of Brite White to lighten it up a bit and 4202 Lemon Yellow to warm it. I sprayed in the cloud contours on both wings using an irregular motion, varying both my distance and my paint flow. I lightly filled in the top sides of the clouds to give them some substance. Keeping in mind that my light source will be from the image on the right, I highlighted the top edges of the clouds accordingly and heat set it. Next, I mixed up slightly pinkish gray using Medium Gray with a few drops of Red Brown and Beige. (You could add a drop or 2 of 4207 Deep Red instead.) I lightened it a tiny bit with Brite White, and layered on the darker un- dersides of the clouds and shaded contours. I also used this color to blend the aqua background out to gray near the horizon lines on both sides. I then added a couple drops of 4206 Flame Red and an equal amount of Brite White to pink it up a bit more, and lightly dusted across the center of the clouds on the right side only. Again, I heat set the artwork.


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