I’ve been working in the lab again to finish up the distillation of the oak leaves. To pull the essence of the leaves from the alcohol we set up a condensing chamber which evaporated the heated steam of the alcohol and let it drip into a flask. leaving the oils behind because they will boil [...]
Here’s the wiped out skeleton with his fully white wings. I’ve turned the image into black and white so I could see how much contrast I’m going to need when I get into putting detail into the bones and pull them forward from the wings. I really like where the paint dripped in a long [...]
Here’s a scary intermediate stage, showing a layer of white going over the first layer of the skeleton. Obviously I’ll cover the right side wing as well, then I’ll use a clean rag to take this off of the rendering of the skeleton, but letting the edges soften into the white background of the wing [...]
Since my last post I have sketched twenty five skulls beneath the feet of the skeleton, completed the first draft of his legs and hands and calculated the golden section. It’s been a fun weekend! I decided to draw the skulls in white pencil rather than going straight in with paint so that I could [...]
I’m continuing to sketch in the skeleton’s legs this morning, and contemplating the multitude of skulls upon which he stands with some trepidation, just because there are so many of them. I should get pretty good at painting human bones with this kind of workload! This layer has all been about sketching the structure of [...]
I’ve found little time to paint today, but did get the hands laid down, establishing my bony friend as the rock star death. I will get more work done this weekend, after I’ve learned how to fix my car brakes. I’ve moved the painting to the other side of the studio because in order to [...]
I had a spare hour to get into the lab with John and filter the results of the month long distillation of the oak leaves for the heart of Glendale in the tree. It turned out to have a quite musty scent, once I could get past the strong alcohol smell. We set it up [...]
I’ve been stewing on the question of the painting between the angels of birth and death. In the tarot the Fool is the initiate on the journey of self discovery – he’s the allegorical embodiment of the experience of life. The third painting almost has to be of a fool on a journey.
I worked late and finished up Death’s chest and outlined the other wing. He’s going nicely. This afternoon I’ve been shooting photos for the angel of life, which has gone very well indeed, even better than I had hoped. My model was fantastic, photographs very well, and nailed the pose perfectly. Awesome! I might even [...]
I’ve moved the black panel onto the big easel, because now it has the canvas over it and a couple of coats of gesso on its surface (that’s half a gallon of base) it weighs just a bit too much for me to move easily. I started painting the figure of the angel, first dividing the [...]
