Fall Farm Stand, Part I

I have started to paint the big gray pumpkin in the commission piece I am working on. It is coming along nicely. I am thinking about calling it Fall Farm Stand. Here is that section of the photo, so you can see what I am trying to achieve:

I will probably do a little more blending, and adjust some of the highlights and shadows, before I am finished painting. After that, I will do the rest when I thread sketch. I am planning to do each pumpkin separately, then applique them to the background. This is partly because I want to add some extra batting behind some of the pumpkins to make them come forward. And I want to add bumps to some of the pumpkins with pieces of melted Tyvek. This material is stiff, and I can’t bend a big quilt too much to get it under my home sewing machine to thread sketch. The finished piece will be about 24 x 36".

In case you were wondering, here is my workspace – my kitchen counter island (or peninsula, more properly). That's my microwave at the back, and my oven to the right.

I am showing this because I’ve discovered that a lot of people think I have a big fancy studio, with space for “wet work” like painting and dyeing. 

Nope. 

I do have a studio, which holds my fabric and sewing machine and a cutting table. It is my former guest room, and it is about 14 x 14 feet. And I feel very fortunate to have that space, but it is not big enough to handle a painting surface. So when I paint, it is most often on my kitchen counter, in the middle of the hub-bub of family life and meal preparations. My old laminate countertops in pale yellow (probably installed in the 1970s) hold up very well to acrylic paint, and can be cleaned with SoftScrub. 

I really hate my countertops, but since I can’t afford to replace them right now, and since the laminate works great for my process, they are probably here to stay for a while.