Working on the figure in Bombers is reflective of the fairly solitary life of a painter. I spend large amounts of time alone in the studio painting, sometimes seeing almost nobody. Yesterday I spoke to eight people all day including a visit to the local church to see my kids in a show. I feel [...]
I found my source pictures for the crucifixion dating back from 2000, when Ogre came over to visit and posed for the painting. I worked at the face for a couple of hours, getting a good layer down. It’s clearly too bright right now, so the next step will be to tone it down a [...]
Tagged Ogre, skinny puppyI spent a few hours working the white stone and the megaliths. The sky will have to wait, as I became quite tired and took an early lunch, then returned to work on the crucifixion.
After a slow start doing the en grisaille on the man things really flew along and I got the basic landscape laid down with the broken up lake bed isolated in grey. It looks pretty psychedelic right now in orange (pretty cool actually) and will soon be turned white, while the presently grey sandy vista [...]
Bombers got a layer of iron oxide to get the ball rolling. The graphite layer turned out to be quite fragile, so I was pretty cautious around the figure not to abrade the drawing too much. This preliminary layer doesn’t last long, and most of it gets covered by future work, but makes a unifying [...]
I added some colour and a flesh velatura to the figures. They’re coming to life now. I’m a bit tired today, and it’s hard to get motivated, but I managed to get some important work done on all three paintings that are on the easels right now. Painting the small works is a very [...]
I worked to finish Amelia’s face, adding moving the eye and putting some flesh tones over the grey layer, then adding some highlights right into the wet paint. It’s almost there now. I’m more satisfied with the positions of the features, so I’ll scrape some texture over it next. I darkened the side of her [...]
Bill Solomon came by this morning and showed me some of his extraordinary sculptural work. We have a good deal in common as far as 3d work goes. He has invented an imaginary culture that used artefacts made with gold and bark, and displays them in galleries as individual works and as pieces of an installation. I [...]
I spent a little time figuring out compositional structure for the piece, coming up with this cleaner and more balanced version. I like it – there’s a simplicity to it that I’m enjoying. I thought a good subtitle or alternative title would be “In the Wilderness”. It’s good to compare the two versions side by [...]
Here’s the sketch for the next big painting. Bombers is the name of an obscure David Bowie song I happened to listen to this morning that seems entirely appropriate as a title for this piece. Lyrics are here if you would like to read them. The figure in the centre is an old man, sitting in the [...]
