Ladies and gentlemen,

just one more month and the show "Duke of Bavaria" will take place in Ingolstadt. The jungle is very active at the moment and if you visit the show, you will surely meet some of the monkeys and see their painted/sculpted stuff.

Today, Peter will allow us a quick glance at his table and the projects he is working on:


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As some of you might know, I´m not the most active painter. I have a very ambivalent attitude towards my hobby. Sometimes I´m very active and enjoy painting so much, but then there are these other times, when I would like to throw everything against the wall. I learnt over the last years that these ups and downs are often connected to my actual situation in life (work, people, family) and that I should leave the brush alone if there is no joy in wielding it. But, I´m working hard to learn riding these waves of emotions and get a more "stable" course :)

Duke of Bavaria is a show, which I enjoy every year. It´s the time to meet friends from all over the world and just hang out with them. So, the months before the event are my most active times in painting.

This year I wanted to do a bigger project for Historical Master Painting. It´s a Roman Centurion bust from Castle Miniatures. I saw it the first time on Putty&Paint, painted by Sergey Popovichenko and it struck me:

I had to do my own version!  

My first attempts were not very good, as the bust is really big and there are also some quality issues regarding the sculpting. So, motivation was rather low, but about two months ago, I got a lot of inspiration from my good friend Christian, who is a specialist for the Roman Army. He told me so much about the Roman Army and their equipment and also helped me with the color choice. So, I repainted a lot and this is the actual result - WIP:





I see him somewhere in Parthia (today Syria/Iraq/Iran), fighting for his life under the middle eastern sun. As I learnt a lot about atmosphere in the last weeks (see below), there is still a lot to do until he is finished. But I think I´m on the right way :)

I thought about doing a longer article regarding the equipment and the colors, so if you are interested in this topic, let me know in the comments. 

The second project, I´m working on was more of a lucky chance then planning. About a month ago, I was in Augburg for a nice painting evening. I wanted to work on my Centurion, but somehow had a bad start. There was something missing, but I could not identify what it was. Roman wanted to help me, as he could see what was missing: life and atmosphere. So, with my agreement, he started painting on the bust and explained what he was doing... but my mind broke... I could not understand what he was doing, I had some kind of a really, really bad blockade.

In order to get things right back on track again, Roman decided to do a spontaneous private coaching with me. He had and Raffa had promised me a coaching as a birthday present last year, but there was never the right time, except for this evening and Roman started with his private coaching with me right away to push me further in my personal painting development.

Roman had finished his version of Abalam just the evening before and had another cast available. So, things were settled: I would paint this awesome bust and Roman would give me an intense teaching in atmosphere over the next weeks. To be honest, it´s not an easy job for him... we know each other for so long and are close friends, but in matters of painting we somehow speak total different languages (like lions in Africa and eagles from an alien planet :-P).

This is the actual result, after I had done my "homework" last Friday - still WIP and I am not allowed to paint on without Roman's guidance in the next teaching session:



As you can see, I placed Abalam in the morning light, which is coming from the left. The bust is not finished yet, but the next teaching lesson will be in two weeks and I´m eager to learn more :)

I can only recommend to do a coaching with Roman or Raffa. Even as I´m a big fan of classes and the good atmosphere there, you learn so much more, if there is somebody right next to you.

So much from my table. Now, it´s time to get back to the brush and keep going!

Cheers,
Peter