Still Life -- final arrangement, but without lighting

This hasn't been easy but I've settled on a design for the first still life.

I was required to find 3 white, red, and green objects. In this exercise, there are only 2 objectives: to learn how to paint a shiny surface with colour reflections (in this case a white teapot) and to learn the indirect method of painting (the bright red napkin). The napkin is almost the colour of pure cadmium red and cadmium orange combined. Apparently, there's no way to create a full range of lights/darks in a cadmium red object without using a different technique. The normal technique would be to mix white and red together first to create a lighter value, but this only produces "pink". So the indirect technique is to paint something white FIRST and then apply glazes of cadmium red on top until the correct value is achieved...

The green is purely incidental. I was going to choose a set of plastic green grapes but was advised that they'd end up looking plastic. So then I experimented with a plastic leaves and settled on this branch of ivy. The green wine bottle in the background will be in shadow and I may pull it out entirely.

The board was suggested by an instructor as a means of adding texture that would contrast with the smooth, shiny surface of the pot. I've deliberately dangled the cloth and top leaves over the edge for another perspective.

Here's a view that from about 7 feet away. I still need to set up the canopy above the objects and angle the light differently. The light, while the correct distance, is directed straight on at the moment. I will be putting it on an angle...

head and shoulders

Latest update: On Thanksgiving weekend, I concentrated on modelling the head and shoulders, as well as the shirt collar. The left eye is placed marginally too high on the figure (based on source photo) and I haven't given the head the same tilt it had, either. But those are minor details that I can choose to sort out later when I return to the head. The blue shirt also needs to be darkened considerably, right to left; and the lightest light of that shirt is currently too bright. The side of the shirt leaning against the curtain also needs a darker grey shadow, which is cast down and across from the window frame. But I will only be able to work these subtlies out once the entire background is in... That's the next task. The painting is now safely at home from the cottage...

Blue shirt and shorts...

I spent some time this past Saturday trying to catch up on other areas... The previous weekend, I worked on the hands, arms and book. Here, I tried to bring the right side of the shirt and shorts up to par, by darkening them to match the value of the arm. Same with the background surrounding the head and torso... Head, and left side need to follow suite. Ideally, once everything in the figure is at the same stage, and it feels like it's one piece, with the light moving from the left to right into darkness, then I'll be read to tackle the background.

I've started to sketch in the window pane on the front left, making the frame narrower than it actually is... And I realized too that the back end of the cottage needs to be very soft and considerably darker than I've left it. The perspective on the back window pane makes it quite grey and hazy...

 

Update on Wayne's Portrait

In the last two sessions, I've worked on modelling the legs, arms and hands, so now there is at least some paint everywhere over the figure. But now the clothing, head, chest and background need to catch up in order for the overall lighting on the figure to make sense. Wayne's left arm, for example, is the correct value (if not the right colour), and now the surrounding shirt and shorts need to darken on the right side considerably with a mixture of ultramarine, black, and some burnt umber... Once I get the values everywhere in sync, I'll take the picture in to the school for a critique before going further.

Finished...

It's finally done, just over a year after stretching the linen and starting the first drawing. It's home now, drying for the next six months until I can varnish and frame it. In the meantime, at the school, I get to move out of my space in the workshop room shop and into a permanent spot to start the first "still life" in red, white, and green.

Time to put away the big brushes...

I repainted the entire background last night (adding a bit more yellow to the mix) and also the cast shadow to the right of the base. I always find the shadows hard to paint. The nearly solid, dark interior (umbra) is easy but as I move out towards the edges towards the light (the penumbra -- almost a shadow, where some of the light is obscured), there's quite variation of subtle patterns... In some places you see a feathered effect, in others definite lines but no hard edges, and then there are blobs where the shadow is equally transparent, as if generated by Photoshop...



Now onto the smallest brushes for some finishing touches in the interior, softening some edges and pushing up some dark shadoes in the centre of the head to punch out the sides of the face and head (the parts closest to us).

Two more sessions max, and then I'm calling it quits on this one...

Early start on Wayne M. Portrait

I've started laying down some "local" colour in the figure and background, but know I have a long way to go. I'm not sure yet how I'll deal with the bulky window frame or the furniture behind the figure, so I'm setting them aside for now. My goal is to colour in the clothing and body, getting the correct values in the lights and shadows, and the immediate background of the curtain. In fact, I'll know when I'm ready to move on when I have 4 distinct values: the background, the cast shadows inside the figure and on the floor, the contained shadows in the figure (like the neck area) and the areas in direct light... I know appreciate why some old masters worked first in grisaille (monochrome) before adding colour...

Michelangelo Copy: Detail from 1542 Battle of Cascina

Once upon a time, Michelangelo received a commission to paint a fresco of the Battle of Cascina between Florence and Pisa. He chose an obscure, peculiar episode of
Florentine soldiers bathing in the Arno river. A captain sounds the alarm (false as it turns out) of the approaching enemy and Michelangelo depicts them scrambling to get out of the water, dressed and armed... The fresco, intended to serve as a clarion call for preparedness, was never done. Some studies of his composition survived, including a painted grisaille copy of the cartoon from his assistant Aristotile da Sangallo, 1542.

I've chosen to do a detail, highlighted by the red box below. The actual composition is about three times what's shown below.



Two years ago, long before I was aware of this source (in a book of complete drawings by M.) I saw this copy below on a friend's wall and photographed it, intending to make a copy.



Now that I have an "original" and this copy side by side, I can see major flaws in both. The hand gripping the pole in M.'s original is grotesquely out of proportion, as are most of the muscle groups... But in the unknown copy, the modelling of the forms is terrible (like rough plaster); the bundle of clothing held in the left hand of the central figure looks like a loaf of bread!

I hope to do better. I made a drawing that uses both compositions and transferred it to "Roma Michelangelo" paper (Grey) and also to Canson blue paper. I'm trying a combination of black charcoal and white chalk/pastel for the first time. The grey paper is supposed to serve as the neutral value. I started out on the outstretched arm, just to see what the white, grey, black combination would produce. Zoom in on the image to see it better...

Preliminary Drawing for Wayne M. Portrait

(Posted from the cottage)

I made a quick drawing based on the photograph of Wayne at the cottage and transferred it to the canvas by colouring the back of the drawing with charcoal and then tracing over the drawing. I didn't have enough vine charcoal with me so I used compressed charcoal, which is very dark. More of it transferred onto the canvas than I wanted. I could wipe it off or wash it over, so I ended up applying a thin layer of Titanium White over the charcoal, leaving only the outline. Two days later, that thin layer hasn't yet dried, which makes me wonder if there's something in the charcoal that is causing the delay... (and yet Ivory Black, which I use as my black paint, is basically charcoal). Guess I'm impatient. I've sketched in some of the lines for the windows, wall and floor shadows, but will need to fix a vanishing point off to the right beyond the canvas to get the perspective lines accurate. The canvas turned out to be smaller than the 30" by 24" size it was supposed to be so my "centre" point changed slightly.

Below is the initial drawing with the figure at 60 cm tall.



Here is the drawing transferred onto canvas:



Now while waiting for the paint to dry, and the rain to stop, I'm getting back to some other unfinishedp projects...

Harmonic Proportions and Ancient Design Systems

Old masters made use of classical geometry to find the best way to arrange figures and objects within a given space. The composition scheme based on harmonic proportions is the most common one (and it derives from Pythagorus's discovery of harmonic proportions -- musical root harmonies -- that explain order and beauty in sound).

I created two samples below, the first on what's called the "armature of the rectangle" and the second on the "root 2 rectangle system" (a rectangle whose dimensions are based on the ratio of the square root of the number 2)

Example 1: Composition Based on the Rectangle's Armature.
I first created a rectangle based on the proportion of my chosen canvas ("30 x 24"). Then I sketched a series of diagonals from the corners and the middle of the sides. Where they intersect, the natural harmonies are created. I've highlighted these with circles. They represent where the eye of the viewer naturally moves to. The goal is to frame subjects or objects at certain harmonic divisions, to rest or place parts of a figure along a diagonal, or to run a harmonic division through key places in the design (typically an eye of a figure).

How did I do? Pretty well, considering I didn't think of the compositon of the surroundings when taking the reference photo. The dots on the photo below represent the natural "eyes" of my rectangle, situated in the natural centre (half point), thirds, and quarters. On my computer, I arranged the photo under the rectangle's armatures diagonals so that the bottom of the book's spine would meet the absolute centre. The remaining eyes are in unusual places but at least I can see some parts of the figure lining up with the diagonals, and Wayne is centered. (If I had asked Wayne to lower and close the book slightly, it would have been perfectly placed)... The grey strip on the far left represents how far I will have to extend the window in the painting to keep Wayne in the centre.



Example 2: Composition Based on the Root 2 Rectangle.

Here, I've taken a Root 2 Rectangle (height 1.41 x width) and imposed it on the image again. This rectangle is sitting over the larger grey rectangle which represnts my 30z24 canvas. The crossing of the main diagonals with the secondary diagonals creates four 90 degree angles and divides the rectangle into thirds. These crossings become 4 "eyes" (the equivalent of the green eyes in the previous picture).



Again, after centering the figure, I see it's not a perfect fit. BUT now I know how big to make the figure and where to position it on the canvas... With this Root 2 rectangle, my figure would be smaller (59.62 cm tall) than with the Rectangle Armature design (66.98 cm tall) -- my preference is the first.