Restoring a Statue of Joseph and Jesus

While John and I were in Nebraska visiting his parents we went with them to their Bible study that Msgr Nemec was teaching.  Stella told him that I just restored a statue for my parish priest.  Msgr Nemec asked if I'd like to do another one and I said sure!  He disappeared up to the church attic and came down with this broken plaster statue of Joseph and Jesus.  The statue had a large part of it's neck missing with a few holes and cracks in other areas.  I said I'd love to restore it!  :)

When I got it home I washed the statue and decided to fix the broken parts of the statue with Spackle because plaster is very chalky like drywall.  

 I sanded it smooth after a night of drying and primed it with a few coats of gesso.

 Then I began blocking in colors with acrylic paint and adding highlights and shadows to the robes.

 Next were the skin tones and hair and finally the gold edging.  I'm really happy with how the statue turned out.  It was so nice to get more experience restoring statues.  I look forward to more statue work in the future. :)

Statue height: 27"

Plein Air Painting Class

I'm really enjoying my Plein Air painting class.  Here are some photos from our last class.  We met at Allen Gardens and set up under cloudy skies.  It got a little rainy but thankfully there was no wind and we could continue to paint under umbrellas.  I really want to go back to finish this one but it's been too hot to get out there with the temperature a few degrees shy of 100!    It's sort of addicting to just pack up and go paint outside.  I wasn't expecting that when I signed up.  I love to paint portraits but landscapes have always been more challenging for me.  I'm going to keep working at it. 

Here's an update today, hopefully I"ll finish up next time. :)

A special thanks to Veronica for giving me this great easel! I think of you every time I go out to paint!