Oil Painting Commission.. sorta.

My bf requested an oil painting as a present for him mom. And I'm not like a crazy painter but I do remember when I did take classes I absolutely loved oil painting. Since I had to drop the class (lol) I couldn't finish up on the learning. So I had to turn to...... BOB ROSS!! Yes that's right... The one and only. I downloaded like 10 seasons of his Joy of Painting videos and watched them while working. I learned so much from him and damn does he make everything look so simple! And the fact that he was able to paint a full amazing picture in an hour was freaking fantastic. I did research on him because really, i didn't know too much about him. I just remember waiting for Barney and they would be playing his show... yes I watched Barney and only the cool kids watched Barney so shush. :P It turned out he was in the military and his job was to yell all day. And painting took him away from all the anger and the yelling and the tense environment. He's awesome. That's all I can say. :)

So I'll post up the progress pix as soon as I save them onto my computer.. but here's a snapshot from my phone of what it looks like so far..



I worked on this for a good 4 hours. I first drew out everything. Oh btw, this is going to be a painting of an Islamic Mosque; Masjid Al- Nabawi. It's a famous mosque and we muslims know it as the Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) Mosque. Which u can see here:



Obviously i have ways to go before it looks anything remotely close to this reference picture :P

I wanted to give the sky a sunset cuz sunsets are awesome!

Thank you Bob Ross for teaching me to paint those happy clouds!

UPDATE: (May 25, 2010)

So i finished the painting and i had to do it fast since i was under a deadline. If i had a little more time i think id improve a few things here and there. But here are some snaps of the paintinnggg!! (They were color adjusted to capture the right colors painted since the pix i took made it look a little washed out.)

Some detail shots of the pillars..

I think i pulled 2 all nighters back to back. maybe got in 2 hours of rest in between. Oh man... i forgot how hard all nighters are without the aid of coffee or energy drinks!

I'm definitely motivated to paint more with oils. I already have another idea for my next painting.. stay tuned!