This is exciting! Here’s my drawing for the center panel: about 12 inches high and the photo completely ruins it but one can get the idea:
I know my head is a little big and funny– that will be fixed. It was hard to fit a decent head in that 1 inch space. There will be larger studies of tricky things like head, hands, and feet.
Here’s what I have painted so far, including the sky:
Remember there will be beautiful blonde borders at every intersection.
And here is the super secret sneak preview:’
Of course, it will be a painting, and all the other paintings are only half done, and I have to deal with those white triangles (bring up the skies) and compose the bottom paintings, and it’s a horrible grainy bad-color photo in my kitchen, but this is what my thesis is going to look like.
Tomorrow: the very personal and revealing updated explanation of the whole thing, as well as a post about playing artist, and lots of art history including Vermeer in his glory. I have many half-finished posts to finish.
Today was a horrible day. I got several bits of bad news- deaths and illnesses etc. I had a complete emotional breakdown at one point and was an irrational jerk to a completely innocent friend who just happened to be around (sorry Bourcard!). Working on this drawing was my solace, and holding it up there and finally really SEEING this crazy thing I am doing with all my days is a white flash of joy.
Mapping Joy 
Nina Jerome
The drawing is lovely. The figure has a relaxed posture and the light surrounding it creates shapes that enhance the composition as well as define the form. The perspective of the floor draws us in with its strong graphic pattern and I am intrigued with the way in which this works with the actual floor of your kitchen. Perhaps you will have to exhibit it there! The starry sky looks good (although hard to see in the photo) and I look forward to seeing how you will solve the white triangles. I hope today is a better day.
Thank you, Nina! That floor was a killer– I’ve tried to draw it before and got so frustrated I gave up. You would think it would be easy to just do it, like a regular checkered floor would be easy, but something about the changed angle really complicates things.But, while re-looking at a bunch of Vermeers yesterday I noticed that he has a similar green and white floor in many of them, and he did the perspective the same way, so that was gratifying. And it is the actual floor in my kitchen. I’m lucky to have such an evocative kitchen this summer, even though the place is a dump, I keep drawing it.
Yes, the sky shows up very little in this photo, it’s much more subtle and bright. The white triangles exist because I decided the sky needed to be at an angle there to lift the eye into the center painting— I think I will just bring up each landscape into that space so they are a little taller.
I KNEW IT WAS GOOD!!!!!!!