DONE: Belvedere Torso in Red Chalk

While on vacation two weeks ago, during a long spell of lousy north Ontario weather, I finally sat down and finished the Belvedere Torso I started last Christmas and worked on in Mexico. Red chalk is a pleasure to work in. I quickly rendered the neck and base in a day. The photo doesn't pick up the red and orange tinting of the watercolour paper, for some reason...

More works nearing completion will be illustrated here by the end of the summer!

A new layout for the Hermes painting

I've draped a maroon clothe around the side and base of the Hermes caste to provide more balance with the cast shadow, a deeper contrast along the lit side of the face, and some diagonals... Below is the new design, cropped in the exact ratio width/height of my canvas. I'm still applying local colour to the new background and will upload an image of the Hermes painting soon.

Juliano is finished 20080628

The monochrome of Juliano is now complete and drying in my studio. In six months time, I'll learn the art of varnishing!

Silverpoint: Da Vinci's study for Lena

I've started a silverpoint copy of Da Vinci's Lena drawing. The original has bad watermarks that obscure the woman's cheek, making it difficult for me to see how the form turns. I'm slowly building up the values and hope to achieve a better sense of turning. Still very faint at the moment.

Second and first painting of Juliano

I'm working hard to finish Juliano by the end of June. At this time, I have only applied a "second painting" layer to the forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, and both sides of the face. This week, I've been concentrating on "edges", and going back to "first painting" (direct pigment, no oil) in different places where second painting would not work. I softened the edges of the hair so they disappear into the background, making the foreground curls jump forward.

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.