July 4th painting

So, I was very pleased with my last painting. On to my fourth painting. My inspiration is a photo from July 4th of my kids ogling Uncle Sam on stilts...plus, it was summer and I was feeling patriotic...sort of.

the lay in:

I wish I had taken more time with getting the lights and darks just right as I did in my previous painting. You can not rush this step.

Here I put in the sky and started fooling around with the background. Those striped pants are giving me pause...

Figuring there's only one way to do them I add the stripes one at a time trying to make the folds apparent

work on Uncle Sam

More detail. The girl's dress is muddy looking and the shoes on Uncle Sam are awful

Uncle Sam's face is giving me a hard time. And those dang shoes (which really aren't real shoes, but silly stilt shoes)

I think the girl's dress looks much better, but I've over painted Uncle Sam's face and it is too blank now

"finished" painting. I like the girl and the boy, although I'm not crazy about his shorts. Still not liking those shoes, but I think I got the face on Uncle Sam better. I am going to put this one aside until later. Truly not a favorite and still needs a lot of work.