OVERVIEW
By
L.H.Barker
This
page is under construction! I will try to update as project unfolds. The Bladensburg
suite will be composed of 4 pieces:
the Magruder House Dining Room
The Market Master's House
The Indian Queen Tavern
view of the port of Bladensburg.
EVOLUTION
OF A PIECE
Magruder House Dining Scene
April 18, 2010
Exciting progress on the first piece.
The piece is moving along well, lots of detail, lots of work and lots of patience!
The rough in the above link has been revised to reflect additional research
and information we did not have when I posted this.
It is all about the details in these historical pieces, which is why they
are as much a labor of love as they are a typical project. One has to decide
to implement the new material and add the extra hours or keep going on the
path already set.
So far corrections have been made to the table food layout, the wine bottles
have been taken out of the room (but left on the dumbwaiter table in the closet),
the vases all placed on the mantel centered, the fireplace logs taken out,
the andirons replaced with more a bulbous design and George Washington's uniform
has been changed to laymen's clothing in a solid blue. We are in the process
of deciding which, if any, flowers should be present on the table. Like all
material in the historical pieces, the flowers need to be checked that they
were grown in the region, were available in May in this time period (1787).
Link to the final rough
which was done digitally and is being hand painted: Magruder
Dining Room color study/rough
Vignettes of the in progress painted piece:
InProgressMagruderDiningPainting.htm
May 27,2010
Temporary links to finished Magruder Dining painting:
full view. Hopefully, I will be able to go back and show more of the in progress
shots!:
Link to Full composition-click to bring up to full size
Link to Detail of the table area-click to bring up to full size
May 31, 2010
Memorial Day-Work starts on generating the rough perspective for the second
piece, Market Master's House in the archaeological/historical suite of 4 illustrations
for the Bladensburg project.
June 28, 2010
The rough for the Market Master's House is coming along nicely. Last week
I was working with a set of old maps ranging from 1903 back to the mid 1700's.
Since all are different scales (and proportions as they went back in time),
I managed to line each up with the next using geological features in Photoshop,
so we could flip back and forth over the centuries and view one over the next
transparently. At issue is the proper location of the Anacostia River in each
of the four paintings. The river changed naturally, silted up and then was
moved by the Army Corp. of Engineers around 1900.
Once that was accomplished, I began to bring them into Google Earth views
of the area and line them up with the 2010 USGS material used in that software.
It is fascinating to be able to fly around maps and land plats from centuries
past and see how the river has changed its course over that time. Below are
a few of those shots.
2010 USGS
with a 1903 Prince Geroge's County map over it and an 1861 map on top:
2010 USGS
with an 1861 map over it and a 1787 on top:
Project team:
Julie
M. Schablitsky, Chief Archaeologist, Maryland State Highway Administration
Julie M. Schablitsky directs the Cultural Resources Section at the Maryland
State Highway Administration and serves as their Chief Archaeologist. Her
recent research includes the War of 1812, 18th and 19th century domestic sites
in Maryland, and John Paul Jones' Birthplace in Scotland. She also serves
as a lead archaeologist on the PBS Series, Time Team America.
Visit http://bladenarch.blogspot.com/ to get updates and learn more!
