No Escaping the Shadows.....
Finishing Touches, Dear Readers, are always the hardest part of an elaborate project. Knowing when it is "done" is an art in itself, one which eludes me most of the time. "Done enough for Now" is more my style as you may have noticed over the years. I am not a perfectionist by any sense of the word, but I have an exacting eye, so what troubles the eye is a matter of "what can I ignore or overlook for the sake of my sanity?" It is my guiding principle in making miniatures. So I ask you again and again, to use a forgiving eye, (especially when you can blow the images up to an alarming scale...!) as you behold the Finishing steps of the Chapel paintings. Having rendered all the faces so cheerfully on The Tower of Babel workmen, (most of the faces are only 1/8 of an inch in size) I had to make myself get back to work on the very time consuming and finicky parts... the clothes and the tools and the very rocks themselves. So many details, and always another one. I started with the blues... (yes, my favorite color in the world) always with an eye to what the original miniature was showing... this is a copy, after all! My tiniest brush added the shadows .... those darker places that seem to define our existence..... (how would we know brightness without darkness to show contrast?)
Worker by worker, garment by garment....
slowly building out the richness of the details...
adding that sparkle that brings things alive...
trying to get the tools right....
even when I don't know what the tool is....!...
I could only work for so many hours
before my eyes weren't seeing anymore
and I had to stop for the day.
And the Next day starting in again with
the shadows for the browns and tans...
and the few items of greens...
and the belts and those shoes! .....
so many tiny details....
And the ground itself....
of course, I forget to take pictures when
I am submerged in the depth of details....
Believe me, there is Always something else...
a tiny tweak, a twist of color, a darker shadow,
the filling of fractional missed spots of color...
(it Always amazes me how much this matters in the end!)
And the few photos I remember to take,
prove inadequate upon closer examination...
focus, focus... focus...
and somehow I have to decide to leave it alone for now...
perhaps it is "done enough for now".....
And I return to the Annunciation,
which itself lacks a few glaring details....
the shadows of the furniture
(her chair which sits mostly on the split side
of the door overlap panel,
and the lettering of Gabriel's message itself,
which you can see finished here in the above photo.
Can we pronounce it finished enough for now?
Which brings us to that magical moment,
the question hovering in the air...
am I ready to glue the Chapel ceiling and trims in place?
Shall we have a look and see....?
(And I must use the flash here or you would see nothing but shadows...
so instead you see nothing of the shadows in the glaring light!)
This is the view of the Nativity side with the ceiling in place
but not the ceiling trim pieces....
just so we have a record of the process, you understand.
It helps to understand the need for the trims
and how challenging they are to fit and paint....
And the God in Heaven above the altar....
The Crucifixion panel beside the altar...
The Moses panel... on the alcove's opposite wall...
The Adam and Eve panel below the Creation scenes....
and a corner of the ceiling over the doors...
And the entire ceiling looking directly up from the doors....
you will notice the corner edges where the
walls and ceiling meet are not very tidy.
It is the job of the ceiling trim to cover all those gaps!
To help make those corners "disappear"...
So, in the order of gluing them in...
the trim above the Crucifixion....
(the trim above the altar was glued in place
waaay back at the beginning of construction,
but I could not attach the other panels until the ceiling
was attached because the arched vaulting prevents
the sliding movement once the trim is glued along the sides.)
And the trim along the Moses panel....
remember I had to paint God's fingertips
to continue onto this piece of trim!
(And I failed to account for the thickness of the trim
when painting the extension of his golden thought radiance....)
And here you see the trim over the Nativity
and the right side of the door arch....
it doesn't meet in the middle because of the
"arch" over the Main Door extending so far up onto the ceiling...
(I really had to disregard corners a lot in this Chapel!)
And the Creation and the Garden of Eden
along with the Noah panel...
And the whole ceiling from the open side,
with the stone column also glued in place.
And from a lower angle...
showing more of the stone walls...
And a slightly different angle...
showing the Nativity wall...
And with the exterior opening doors open....
The Annunciation and the Nativity side....
And the Tower of Babel and Garden of Eden side...
And from the inside with one of the door panels closed.....
(perhaps I need to repaint that stone upper door edge.....)
And from inside with the other door panel closed....
I will have to see if I can get the camera in
through the Great Hall door to see both panels closed.....
(but that will be another day...)
From the outside with the altar candles lit...
And inside with the candles lit...
and the daylight coming in through
only one of the stained glass windows...
(sigh)...
(the trials of a too small house...)
Heavens Above!
It would Appear, Dear Readers,
that after all the tweaking and
touching up and finishing Details...
I have finally finished the Chapel!
