This painting is my first attempt to paint a human head. I painted her from a reference photo, a young English woman posing in the cold light of Wales. She has an odd look in her eyes, not really looking inside her cup but rather looking inside her head.
She isn't finished but she is at the stage of "the best I can do at this point". Soon I will take her to Edward Povey's studio and he will coach me through applying a series of glazes to bring her more "in tune". The 3-D modeling and colors on her skin aren't right yet and I am hoping that they can be improved with glazing. Her eyes need to be set back into her head a bit too. So stay tuned and consider this the BEFORE shot.
I have to admit that I was pretty terrified to try to paint a person. With that in mind, I am now feeling much more confident and am pleased with my first try. I'm anxious to get her glazed so I can try another.
I'm still working on the Hometown Series and am nearly finished with the second painting. They are more difficult than you would think that they would be, finicky.
In parallel, I am also working on other projects like figure drawing. The work above is a work in progress, a drawing using graphite drawing pencils on Bristol Smooth paper. You are looking a small portion of a complete nude female figure. This little bit took an afternoon to accomplish. Actually the process is a rather Zen experience. The goal is not to see any lines, just graphite that looks like a human. Tricky. Taking a photo of the piece helps me see what errors I have made. Now I have to go pick up my sticks and try again.
I needed to do a little painting just for fun and silliness after all the serious work this fall in the Austin Atelier. These three fit the bill in a little 6x6 inch canvas. The subject seems right for the times when we can't seem to see issues from a shared perspective. I stopped before actually naming names.
Note new blog format. Click on the image to see the full text and comment if you like. This study focuses on values using only 3 colors plus white. The goal is to control tonal value (light and dark) in order to get the architecture of the object correct, creating an illusion of 3D on a 2D canvas. The idea is to observe light as it strikes objects and the relative lightness or darkness and warmness or coolness of that light that we see, then recreate it on the canvas. In this exercise the palette is limited to 3 colors plus white: Burnt Sienna, French Ultramarine and Lemon Yellow. You might think that is a big drag having only 3 colors but it is actually very freeing. I didn't have to even consider using all those other colors in my paintbox.
I learned a lot from this study about how to make the color that I have in mind to make (mix), and how to adjust the value and the color temperature to get it right.
Happy Birthday Dear Janet....This painting was a present for my sister, Janet. I got it completed, framed and delivered to her in Massachusetts just before Christmas arrived. Not too bad considering that her birthday was in November.
This scene is dawn at Long Lake in Southern Maine. Janet and her husband Peter have a home right on the lake and they wake to this scene many a morning in fair weather. Janet calls the lake in this condition "smooth". My goal was to capture the sun just as it was about to break above the horizon, to make the canvas look like it was literally being lit by the sun. It was fascinating to notice and capture all the colors emerging from the dark. The hard part was holding back on the colors to let the sun's light remain center stage. This photo doesn't do a great job of capturing the effect of the painting in real life for you to judge if I succeeded. One of my 2013 resolutions is to get better at photographing my own paintings.
Once the Rabbitskin Glue coat was dry, I applied a coat of lead-based white primer. When that was dry dry, I tested the canvas for taut (It should sound like a drum when pinged.) and adjusted the stretcher keys in the corners until the canvas was tight. You can see the keys in the corners of the back side in the second picture. Then I applied a second coat of primer. The canvas is now ready for a ground coat color as the final step, often a thin wash of burnt sienna.
Before tackling this beautiful surface I will take my courage pills.
Very interesting process. The photo shows the result of Day 1 of Canvas Making with Edward Povey and Donna Tolar. The stretchers are assembled; the linen is prepared and stretched; and one coat of rabbit skin glue has been applied to seal the linen. (Yup, glue made from actual rabbit skins just like in the time of Van Gogh.) In the next step we apply primer. I am learning the methods of the Masters that have stood the test of time. Paintings from the middle ages remain intact while 20th Century paintings are challenging conservators. Poorly prepared canvas causes the paint to fall off over time. My canvas is on the right in the foreground.
