Full view:
Close up:
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Second painting phase continues...
The strategy from the start has been to work from the eye shadow outwards. At this point, the forehead, cheek and nose are finished, so I've been concentrating on the beard and the top of the head. (See second photo below -- red circles mark the spots). The edges that are soft or that I have blended with the background tend push the forms back in space. The edges left hard and with a greater contrats between light and shadow tend to jump the forms forward. When standing back 7 feet, I now experience a visual special effect where parts of the beard appear in sharp focus and much closer than the eye... This doesn't come through in the photos, which tend to flatten the image.
Full view:
Close up:
Full view:
Close up:
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Second painting underway for the Gaul
The last phase of this painting is now officially underway. After finishing the first painting of the base, I lowered the painting down on the easel to match the level of the statue again (see below).
I'm currently "second painting" the face, with a 2:1 ratio of mineral spirits to linseed oil. The paint on my pallette is thinned with this mixture before being applied to the canvas.
I started with the forehead and went down as far as the brow (I'm leaving the eye untouched until the surrounding areas are done). Some important lessons were relearned:
1. Lay in a couch of middle value first. Look at in on an angle to see where the glaze is reflecting (which tells you where the couch is and isn't).
2. The boarders (where light meet dark) need to be dealt with at this time, otherwise a hard edge will be left.
3. To create a soft edge, there has to be wet paint in the dark area meeting the light area. As you push the wet light paint into the boarder it blends into the dark paint. If the line of the drawing gets lost or distorted, paint out from the dark border into the light area to restore it. The resulting edge should be soft or hazy.
For the forehead, I had to blend into the edge of the background and the top of the brow, both of which had been prepared beforehand. For the nose, there were three edges: the background, the bottom right of the eye shape, and then top of the nostril. The arrows below highlight these spaces.
I'm currently "second painting" the face, with a 2:1 ratio of mineral spirits to linseed oil. The paint on my pallette is thinned with this mixture before being applied to the canvas.
I started with the forehead and went down as far as the brow (I'm leaving the eye untouched until the surrounding areas are done). Some important lessons were relearned:
1. Lay in a couch of middle value first. Look at in on an angle to see where the glaze is reflecting (which tells you where the couch is and isn't).
2. The boarders (where light meet dark) need to be dealt with at this time, otherwise a hard edge will be left.
3. To create a soft edge, there has to be wet paint in the dark area meeting the light area. As you push the wet light paint into the boarder it blends into the dark paint. If the line of the drawing gets lost or distorted, paint out from the dark border into the light area to restore it. The resulting edge should be soft or hazy.
For the forehead, I had to blend into the edge of the background and the top of the brow, both of which had been prepared beforehand. For the nose, there were three edges: the background, the bottom right of the eye shape, and then top of the nostril. The arrows below highlight these spaces.
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