6" x 6" oil on gessoed panel
Title, composition, and lighting setup inspired by the recent Venus-Mars-Moon conjunction. The cookie was good.
On a personal note, I sacrificed today's painting time in order to drive over to Ft. Worth Joint Reserve Base (formerly Carswell AFB) and take photos like these:
I had time to make a few sketches of the crowd at the overlook before I spotted some friends at the fence, and not long afterwards things started to happen down on the flightline, so I traded my sketchbook for a camera and binoculars. On the aesthetic front, Endeavour is a beautiful ship in the flesh. I've always seen the Shuttle as boxy and only vaguely airplane-esque - an extraordinary collection of compromises which, while an amazing accomplishment, is certainly nowhere near as attractive as its 1960's and 70's aerospace contemporaries, like the brutally beautiful Phantom, broad-shouldered Tomcat, or elegantly thuggish F-105. I was pleasantly surprised to see that in person, from the side, the Shuttle does show just a dash of the aggressive, hungry 1960s look.
I don't have much else to report without using superlatives like "spectacular" and "once in a lifetime". That is not an exaggeration, since this was my first, and - due to the Shuttle's impending retirement - last opportunity to see the Shuttle ferried through this neck of the woods. Some things are worth skipping work for.
