Couches and Second Painting

I picked up a new second painting expression this week: Laying a Couch. As I understand it, this means applying the tinted oil/spirits mix over the area of the painting you intend to cover on top of the first painting.

I tried this out on the area above the statue's right eyelid. I put down two couches, one for the brow in the light, and one for the brow's contained shadows. I painted over the light one first to the edges of the shadows and to the place where the brow meets the forehead. I did my best to keep the edges soft and to blend where appropriate. I still need to do the upper eyelid before I move over to the other eye. In the close up, you can compare the differences between the first painting of the sculptures left eye and the near complete second painting of the right eye (which is much smoother)...

I took a break from Juliano Saturday to open up the cottage. While there, I worked on the charcoal drawing of John and the silverpoint copy of Da Vinci's Lena.

Fat over Lean or from Lean to Fat

This week I redid the background to show a gradient from dark to light by one value (it doesn't show in the photo below though). Fernando used the painting for a school demo on the "second painting" process and begin working on a small area: the lower lid of the left eye.

Some important principles:

• We've been working from lean to fat. Lean at one extreme is pigment thinned with a solvent like mineral spirits. Fat at the other extreme is pure oil, no pigment. In the middle is the "meat of the sandwich" -- the pure pigment of first painting.
• We want "fat over lean" so that a foundation exists before applying the oil. Thin pigment painting over oil will crack and oil takes so long to dry.
• In second painting, you begin "thin" and work towards "fat". Thin means 1 part linseed oil, 2 parts mineral spirits. Then when you do another layer, you reduce the reduce the mineral spirits (equal parts)... And finally you mix 2 parts oil, 1 part spirits.
• The Stand oil (thicker than linseed) can be used for the shadows. It dries quicker.

The technique:

• Mix the medium in a cap (e.g., 6 drops to 12 drops)
• Put some on the pallete and tint it the value of the lightest value in the area selected for second painting.
• Apply it as a glaze over the area.
• The "second paint" the area with pure pigment, blending as necessary.
• Let it dry before going back.

Below: Juliano as completed first painting, ready for second painting.

Starting the Dry Brush for Hermes

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been busy making preparations for Hermes. After the cartoon was finished, I coated 2 available stretched canvases (one actually canvas and the other linen) with 3 coats of Golden Ground & Gesso and sanded after the last coat with 600 wet/dry silicon carbide sandpaper. I decided to work with the canvas because it's slightly wider than the linen, at 20X24 instead of 18X24.

The next step was to transfer the cartoon onto the canvas. I tried putting a sheet of carbon paper underneath the cartoon but the carbon wasn't transferring well and I feared slashing the canvas with the pencil tip if I pressed too hard... So then I resorted to the old fashioned way:
I made a tracing of the cartoon on mylar paper. Then I used a push pin to retrace Hermes on the mylar paper, poking holes large enough so that grains of charcoal would fall through. Once I place the mylar paper over the canvas, I brushed charcoal dust over it to transfer the drawing to the canvas.

The advantages:
-- I still have the original drawing that I can reuse
-- In the later stages of the painting, if I feel I've lost the "drawing", I can place the mylar paper over top again and see how the painting compares with the lines and shapes from the original drawing.

Then came the dry brush. I thinned out Raw Umber and followed the transferred drawing.

Shown below: the canvas with the transferred drawing, gone over roughly dry brush; and below it the completed cartoon and the mylar coated in charcoal.

Now that this is done, I will be able to paint in the "dead colour" --the background, cast shadows, contained shadows -- before beginning big form modelling in the first painting.

Juliano: chin and neck tuck

Small spaces are harder in many ways than the larger ones. I recently reworked the chin and neck, and have continued building up the smaller areas of hair in the left, both in and out of the light.

Hermes and his Goulish Cartoon

Over the winter in my home studio, I've been working on Hermes, on loan from a friend. I recently finished his cartoon and happened to capture the daytime shadows on his face at noon. In the photo below, taken early on the morning of Sat Mar 22, the shadows have not yet moved into the place where I've fixed them... He looks goulish in the drawing, but the anatomy is basically right. I will be transferring him to good paper and to linen canvas soon. On the canvas, I'll do a quick drybrush in raw umber to bring out the correct values again. Hermes has been patient.

More hair, less vegetable oil

I've been concentrating on the left side of the head, trying to take the hair up to the same level of "first painting" as the forehead. The construct of the hair also needed to be trimmed to make the shapes smaller on the left... Fernando noticed the open jar of vegetable oil I had on my stand. I had been using it to wipe brushes clean before switching to another value -- but this was putting the oil on the canvas! The vegetable oil should only be used when ending the session, and be rinsed out of the brushes with soap and water.



I'm also trying to construct my own neutral value scale, matching the Munsell example Juan posted on a pillar near my easel. His example matches true neutrality. It places pure black at 0 and pure white at 10. My own black paint (Ivory) appears somewhat bluish and all of my first attempts up to 5 were too blue (cool) and needed more brown.

Hair on the Head

This week, I started blocking out sections of the hair and loosely working the shapes, both in the shadows and the lights. I'm holding several brushes in my hand at once -- light/dark tones, wide and small -- so I can push forwards and backwards in colour and stroke as needed. Some spots are more finished than others. I've barely touched the far left side.

I've been told not to leave any hard edges that aren't necessary or final (especially between black and white extremes because they will be hard to soften during "second painting"). Another warning: not to "blend" during first painting (because it's a waste of time) and instead it's OK to leave the paint blotchy, as I did on the face and neck. When I started today the chin was too wide and not angled correctly; I've moved the points of the chin down to correct them but haven't finished setting the edges correctly. Next week.

The head is from one of 6 statues Michaelango made for the Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici. There are many references to this on the web.

Back to Juliano

We had a series of lectures by Juan Martinez over the weekend on painting materials, the Munsell Colour System, and the French academic tradition (and where we fit in). I'll be posting the list of recommended materials later. Here though is the latest Juliano. I have been modelling the cheeks and the neck. Now the hair is standing out like a clown's wig. I'll be getting to that next.

Silverpoint Workshop Feb 11-14

I took a break from painting this week to take a workshop in Silverpoint at the Academy of Realist Art (with instructor Ryan Gauvin).

Silverpoint (or metalpoint) is an old method of drawing using a stick of silver sharpened to a point and held in a lead holder. A Renaissance technique, it was used as a drawing medium for studies. By the 17th century, its use became increasingly rare as graphite become more readily available.

Below is a sample from my first piece, a copy of a Raphael drawing. The intention was to follow build up the drawiing slowly, following the lines of the artist. Unlike graphite, you cannot erase the silverpoint markings (although apparently you can sand the surface down to make them disappear, but this harms the paper). Here is the process we followed:

1. Ryan prepared watercolour paper for us that had been coated several times with Golden Acrylic Gesso. It was sanded down to make a smooth finish. The idea is to prepare a surface that the silverpoint can scratch a line onto. This will work with gold too.


2. We traced a few lines of an existing drawing with Mylar tracing paper with a thin graphite pencil and then went over them again with a black marker so they would show up.


3. On a light table, I placed the treated paper over the tracing paper and re-traced the outline with a graphite pencil. You can use the silverpoint but if you're not careful, you can cut too deeply and not be able to erase later.


4. Back on the stool, I got to work using a series of long strokes to build up values and follow the direction of the lines (bottom left to top right for a right-handed person; bottom right to top left for a left-handed person).


5. I turned the board constantly to get the right angle. The lines have to be drawn in parallel. You also can't stop in the middle of a line and pick up later...


6. The last step, which I haven't done yet, is to tint the paper.... Normally, Ryan would tint the paper with acrylic before starting the drawing. But there are advantages of doing it later. If you go too dark with the silverpoint, then a tint after the fact will take some of the excess value away.

Continue Modelling the Face

This week, I concentrated on shaping the cheeks and chin, trying to lighten things up where required and keep the values neutral.