New Skins

No. this isn't a new abstract painting....

I was about to varnish the entire image today, but I knew deep down I wasn't ready yet.  There are parts of this piece that I am not happy with and I want to resolve them.  It would be like quitting before you took your last turn, because once you varnish, it seals the surface.  Sure you can paint over the varnish, but that defeats the purpose.

Varnish is used for two reasons.  One is to protect the surface of the painting by creating a protective layer and the other is to unify the surface (it re-saturates all of the colors and gives everything an even *shine* - it eliminates the "dead" spots that can occur when oil paint dries.  Not all artists varnish- it can be an aesthetic choice.

The above photo is a detail of a varnish test I did on the top left corner of the painting. You should be able to see a clear line of where I varnished and where I didn't.  The deeper "dark" color has been varnished.  It makes this color very rich.  trust me. 

So instead of getting out my varnish brush, I took out my usual brushes and got out some new paint and I repainted the face again today - for the final time.  4th time is a charm.  It is a major focal point of the piece, so if it isn't good enough, the rest of the piece will suffer (and I like the rest of the piece).  This is the final paint job.  I am happy with it.  I was not hitting the right marks in it before.  I wasn't following the form nor keying the right values.  When I say repainted it, I mean the whole thing.  not just the ear or the cheek.  Now I am happy with it.  It is very cohesive.

My new flesh tones that I mixed up were much more accurate than the previous batch - plus I didn't over brush or "noodle" it to death.  Lay it down and move on -  I should make a giant sign to hang in my studio.  If you overbrush and overwork, you kill it.  You loose all sense of energy and life in the brushwork, and worst of all you muddy up the color.  I will apply a simple glaze to accentuate a few parts though.

 

I used my new batch of skin colors to add some much needed form to the fingers as well.  They seemed a little flat and simple before.  A little extra modeling here and there...

so here we are today.  I'd say I'm about 96% there.  All I want to do is tweak a few of the objects and throw a little glaze on the figure and we are ready to varnish.

I'll talk about the varnish in the next post.

(you can click on this one to get a bigger version too)

Days 5-6

I'm not counting the passing days, but rather my full working days- at least 3 productive hours = one day.  A few days have gone by where I've made minor tweaks or simply walked away after an hour or two.  Sometimes you got it and sometimes you don't.  I've learned that when I "don't", to do something else.... because I start painting over things....

The above photo is where I left things today.  This one in particular looks the most accurate in terms of color (at the moment). From here on in, the majority of changes are most likely going to appear subtle in the photos.  The dark area in the top right is wet paint from me beginning to lay in more opaque paint (Ivory Black, Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson) to make a dense dark.  I want to create visual push and pull.  This is how the much of the darks in the top region of the image will look. Some areas need to be pushed way back and some areas need to be pulled out.

I have repainted the face and neck twice in three days.  I don't like to do that because it creates a lot of paint layered on top of each other.   It is best to scrape it off if you don't like it, that way you get the underpainting (the Raw Sienna wash in this case) popping through all over and creating visual harmony.  If there is too much paint down, you can loose this effect.  - It is a conscious decision to allow it to come through.  This is the golden color you can see in the arm and lower abdomen- I used very translucent cool colors that were carefully placed next to it. You can see a bit more in the pic below.


Game plan:  A friend of mine gave me a nice complement and a good idea.  I think I was already leaning this way, but now I'm going to be a bit more deliberate.  He said he really likes the juxtaposition of the highly finished passages and the untouched or loosely painted areas. So I'm going to be leaving parts unfinished, and I'm going to keep my drips - I like the effect anyway.

What I'm doing now is working with Titanium white and Raw Sienna (plus a touch of Manganese) and giving some volume to the unfinished areas, pulling out a few bits here and there and hitting a few highlights.  I really like working with this kind of limited palette and focusing on form. A true underpainting would have all of the volumes rendered. Below is a pic from where I left off on Day 5....

Lay Ins - Day 1

Now that my drawing has been transferred, I am going to start blocking it in.  I've been developing my ideas lately with strong chiaroscuro, so I would like to establish my darks at the beginning. I want to have the subject emerging from the shadows -nestled if you will. 

I am using Ivory Black, with some turpentine to keep it loose and flowing, to lay down a base.  I will go over this as I progress through the painting, and "deepen" it in places by adding more opaque paint.  I also added a touch of the Raw Sienna in a few places near the figure to keep the shadow a little warmer. Ivory Black is a very cool color that leans heavily toward blue, but with my Raw Sienna wash underneath, it should give it some warmth.  I will glaze in some warmer tones near the end if it is still too cold.  I want to create a womb-like image, so warm rich shadows (where appropriate) are what I'm looking for.

this is the full image (48"x32") My concept is a mix between burial funeral, womb, birth and death.

What I have found thus far is that the oil based primer coat is very absorbent. I wasn't expecting this.  Usually I can get my paint to run when it is loose, but not with this stuff.  I think I understand what it is doing.  It is binding with the paint film by absorbing the oils and solvents.  I think it is going to make a great surface as I get more and more paint on the board.  I'm interested in seeing what happens as I build it up more and more.

Out of Darkness

I've been looking at a lot of Cravaggio's work lately.  That crazy Italian who worked in the late Rennaisance and brought chirascuro to the forefront of painting.

Needless to say, I've been reading and exploring his work and techniques and you can too by following the link above.  Caravaggio left no drawings behind - only finished canvases (and one partially complete) before he died at the age of 38.  It is believed that Caravaggio used a camera obscura in his work.  Through my research, I found that he might have used Mercury to "fix" the images, thus leading to his "crazy" behavior.  He killed a man in a duel and had a price put out on his own head.  He was disfigured in another duel shortly before his death.

I have been experimenting with getting a strong, single direction light source in my own work to illuminate the figure.  I did a bunch of tests before getting something workable.  I try to do a self portrait every year, so this year I decided to use myself as the model. The painting above is not varnished yet so the colors are a bit spotty.  The varnish will unify the surface and accentuate the darks. I should repost it after it is varnished.  you will have to wait and see.

I think the self portrait thing is left over from having all of those school pictures made every year as a kid. I think I still have them all from when I was like 7. It is record keeping.