finish up of "geronimo" sketch

i decided to take a break from the double portrait for at least this morning and instead noodle around with the painting of geronimo that i think i started back in january. it was on bristol board and i wasn't happy with the surface and how it was reacting to the paint. so that seemed the perfect thing to experiment with some things i had been thinking about.

the two things that i tried here on the background were using stencils of lettering and stamping paint on using a number of objects,s found and made. i found some pictures of apache pictographs and drew them on a piece of foam core. then i put a liberal line of "tacky glue" and let it dry. my first go showed that the paint softened the glue enough that it needed sealing. i sealed it with a spray or krylon acrylic coat and tried it again. seemed to work. the ones i chose were mainly for their shape but represented raiders, earth, and sadness.

"the swan will soon sing geronimo's song" (14"X12")

the letter stencils were just a plastic sheet i picked up at a local chain art/craft store. i daubed paint on the openings with a small (#8) round brush mixing up the colors a bit. the whole thing seemed a little rigid to me so i liberally spattered clear water over some of the figures.

to finish up i put a loose darker wash over the top and let it drip down with a little coaxing and direction.

all in all, i think that there is some merit to these techniques and i will do some more experimenting with them on another painting. i think making some small stamps with both pictographs and even some abstract shapes on a linoleum block might give a little more even paint distribution than the "tacky glue" deal....but i must say that the randomness of the paint application with the "glue" approach appeals somewhat to me.

that's all for today.

"...what's for dessert?": just a wee bit more

next steps in "so...what's for dessert?"

continuing on with "so...what's for dessert?"

i haven't much time today as i have a tee-time in about an hour but i thought i would post the work from yesterday. about 45 minutes of painting mainly on john's face and the background. i think these are the before and after photos, the last just as i ended work for the day. more tomorrow.

new commission: just a start

i actually received this commission a bit before we left for borrego springs, but because of the trying conditions out there i put it off until we returned home. there are a couple of challenges here for me. first of all i not only know these folks i am also related to them by marriage. the woman connie is my wife's sister and the guy john is her husband. so i know that i am going to put quite a lot of stress on myself to get a good likeness. that may not all that difficult but to keep it fresh at the same time will be the trick. additionally they wanted a landscape format which for the source photos they sent me was not ideal. lastly, they are a pretty conservative couple and any quirky compositional or technique things will probably not work well with their sensibilities.

i finally settled on the composition you see here. at a life painting session last fall i was struck by how vibrant and glowing the skin tones were when framed by a darker purple-ish gray neutral. i changed mush of the darker background in the reference photo to this color and made some geometric shapes to frame the figures. all this was drawn and transferred to a 300#, 15"X22" piece of fabriano artistico hot press paper.

i will just put up the stage photos as i moved along. they are more or less about 30 minutes of work between each. as it is a new "color" for me i will note that the dark background is a loosely mixed combination of cobalt blue and cadmium red light. so far the likenesses are coming along okay and i am liking the dark strips of color behind the figures. i am struck by how little detail is necessary in john's profile to get the effect that i want. it is mainly driven by the outline of the front of his face. that's good as there is a paucity of half-tones (or the whole thing is a half-tone) in the photo i am using which means that if i am going to put them in i will have to make them up. that was a challenge for connie's face. that is the trouble with a flash photo.

so far so good

"the betrothal of miss victoria": wrap-up

starting point for background

i tweaked a few of the features on the lady's face and finished the fellow's face. i didn't a huge dark all alone down in the right corner so i let the clothing sort of fade out near the bottom and right. the main thing was the background. still struggling somewhat with this. i am going to have to have a long talk with ted nutgall when he is here in a few weeks about his ideas and how he decides what to do. right now i think that the backgrounds along with composition are the major things that i need some work on.

to get back to the background, i painted on successive glazes of yellow, and a variety of blues looking for just the right tint. the first was ultramarine blue which because of the red in it left things a little dingy and grayer than i wanted. the second was cobalt which was pretty pure , transparent blue which brought it back toward the freshness i was looking for. the last which i am going to stick with was a light value wash of peacock blue that i found in my "blues" drawer waaaaaaaay in the back. it may be just a little too "sweet" but i am already just a bit darker than i intended to go and i opted to leave it at this stage rather than search for the perfect hue only to have too dark a painting.

here is the beginning point for the background and the end after a few the stages as i went through with each of several washes each done with a #26 round brush. of note, i did apply each glaze over the *right* or shadow sides of the figures to "plant" them into the scene and to help that recede a bit. i then went back after each wash while it was still wet and softened the hard edge. all in all, i think this came out pretty close to what i was striving for.

"the betrothal of miss victoria" (15"X20")

"the betrothal of miss victoria": continuing on with modeling and background

first 30-minutes of work

i sort of am trying to keep everything moving forward. in the first 30 minutes or so i refined the woman's features and hair a little with the same triad as last time and using the #16 cosmotop round brush. her beau was looking a bit anemic so i started working mainly on carving out his facial structure using a slightly darker value of the same triad. when this had dried almost completely i put in his *right* eye....yep, same triad except iris was mainly burnt sienna and cobalt blue, and pupil a dark value of ultramarine blue and burnt umber to make a black. i lost the lower outside edge of the pupil as the final stroke on the eye using a clean, damp, thirsty brush. the trickiest part of the eyes is leaving the highlight alone.

last and second 30 minutes

during the final 1/2 hour or so i decided to get rid of the bulk of the rest of the white by applying a light value yellowish wash over the bulk of it. the combination used was raw sienna and cadmium yellow pale, mixed mostly on the paper. i used a #26 round brush for this application. i let this wash go over the lower *right* sides of the figures, hair, and clothing as that side is in shadow and i am ultimately going to try to lose much of that edge to help it recede. the last thing i did was add the shadow on her dress under and to the *right* of her chin. i put some raw sienna at the far *right* edge to represent reflected light and a blue gray wash to represent the reminder of the shadow as it moved to her *left*.

time for launch. more later.

suka: the end is just the beginning

i think i have finished the painting of the young border collie suka and joan on the porch of our humble abode in borrego springs. last time i pondered whether the painting was getting too cool. so, i added a warm geometric shape at the top. it warmed it up! maybe a little too much. i also thought that the lone reddish/magenta triangle representing joan's t-shirt peeking out the bottom of her flannel shirt looked a little lonely. i added some other notes of the same color in front of suka and to the left of joan's head to balance things out. that really warmed things up even more. it may have been better not to have added the hint of the t-shirt in the first place, but "no guts, no glory" (no discretion, either, it seems). i'll stay with it even though it isn't expected, just because it .....well, isn't expected.

"what's shakin', suka": 21"X15"

i finished off joan's legs, feet, and sandals. to seat them down i added some hints of shadows beneath them and suka's paws. i also added some boards from the porch slanting out and to our left as they came forward. to help with the feeling of the boards moving out toward the observer, i darkened the wash(es) a little as they moved toward us. i am starting to get nit-picky so i had better stop, at least for a while. however, i think that this done.






in the best tradition of "commencement" i started the next painting yesterday as well. i have several of the old photos of folks in the victorian era from the antique store downtown. there recently has been some interest in the first painting that i did of these ("a proper young lady"; thanks, dan). this next one is a shot of a young couple either at their wedding or perhaps a photo commemorating their betrothal. i pretty unabashedly stole the composition from ted nuttall's play book by making the woman the star and placing her beau in a subordinate role and even leaving some of his face out of the frame. here is the inspiration photo:

i started, after deciding on the composition, by drawing the figures on a piece of drawing paper roughly the size of the painting. when i was satisfied with that i transferred it to a piece of fabriano artistico #300 hot press paper measuring 15"X22". to start the painting process i applied a loose wash of scarlet lake, cadmium yellow-orange (holbein), and cerulean blue over most of the faces and figures using a #26 round cosmotop f brush. when this was almost dry i applied a darker wash of various amounts of burnt umber, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, and even a little hooker's green dark to the hair areas. all of this i deliberately let spill out of the boundaries of the figures and over to the edges of the paper. when all this was completely dry i started in painting her *right* eye using the same pigment as for the light wash but a little darker. i shook out the brush after rinsing and lost some of the edges here and there in a more or less random manner. the iris was painted with cobalt blue and burnt sienna being careful to avoid the highlight. as the bottom of the iris usually is lighter than the top which is in shade, i only painted the top half and pulled the pigment down to complete the bottom half with  clean damp brush. when tis was dry enough to allow only a little bit of "bleed" i put in the pupil around the highlight with a rich mix of ultramarine blue and burnt umber to make a black. i then lost the lower inner edge of the pupil with a damp brush just "kissing" the edge of the pupil and drawing it down and medially. all of this was done with a #16 cosmotop b round brush. the rest of the modeling of the nose and mouth and cheeks was performed using the same brush but with mixtures of scarlet lake and cadmium orange and, at  times, a touch of cerulean blue. i started separating the lower face and collar of her dress from the background with an application of raw sienna on either side of her neck. the shadows in the collar were painted with a neutral gray composed of cerulean blue, alizarin crimson, and raw sienna and then modified by charging in on of the colors afterwards for interest.

beginnings of "just  gal and her beau"

at this point i decided i needed a change. i turned on my amp, grabbed the telecaster and began shredding some wicked blues (as if). see you tomorrow.