First painting of the Gaul 99% done

In the last three sessions, I've been busy finishing the base. I raised the canvas on the easel so that I could work directly on the lower half without bending down. The elipse on the base of the statue has been extremely difficult to get. The ends curve up and the bottom part remains flatter than I expected. I started on the table this past Saturday and realize now that it's wider then it should be and that the right edge is too straight.

Because I stand slightly to the right of the statue, I need to portray two-point perspective. The sides of the stand need to be angled in such a way that they'd meet in a vanishing point off in the distant upper right of the picture... Meanwhile, the front and back edge should be nearly parallel but not perfectly so (because their lines would meet at a vanishing point off somewhere in the distant left.) Finally, I will need to finish the cloth on the front and right side (especially the folds).

Skin Colours and Organizing the Palette

A recent lesson I learned is to organize the palette by colours and values before you begin a session. Below is a sample for skin colours (for the Patroclus painting). I take one colour out of the tube (Burnt Sienna, for example) and create a range of values down to 9 (white). Then I line up additional colours and do the same thing, trying to create rows of matching values. My first attempt is shown below.



When you begin painting, you first pick the value you need and then determine the most suitable colour. By laying things out beforehand, some guess work is taken out of mixing. If I need a value that combines colours, I can choose from the appropriate row on my pallete, perhaps blending two squares or blobs. The paint that I apply should then be accurate for value and be cleaner.

Below is detail from the Patroclus painting. I painted the lower calf in a session before I began organizing my palette and the paint is streaky. A few weeks later I painted the thigh using the organized pallete (in which Burnt Sienna was my dominant shade).

First painting of the Gaul nearly done...

I finally found the "source" of the sculpture. Various textbooks had described it as "Moses", artist unknown. But I found it in a catalogue from an expo of the Tennenbuam collection at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. The piece is called "Head of a Gaul", sculpted in 1836 by Frenchman Francois Rude (1784-1855). The www.artrenewal.org site also confirms that, alhough they list the name as "Head of an Old Warrior".

This week, I repainted the cast shadow and added the penumbra on the edges of the shadow shapes. I also darkened the shapes in the beard (but going overboard in a few spots). I'm left now with only the base of the scuplture and the table top to finish in the "first painting stage".