Taking pictures of Cody for reference for the Traveler went well, so I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to get moving with the painting once I grid out the canvas and draw the man in the setting. As usual I visited the studio this morning before I ran (I’ll run a mile most mornings, [...]
While waiting for my student to arrive to be photographed I painted a greyscale sky behind death. I let it get pretty dark so that there is an ominous sense to it, with cracks of light appearing in the sky behind the figure. He doesn’t have any hands at the moment because it would be [...]
Looking through my files of photo reference materials I found this shot of the Stones of Steness, on Orkney, which brought back some great memories of midsummer sunset on the islands. I can use this as a source for the sky in the Traveler.
I’m posting a couple of pictures of the Fool from the Marseille and the Waite Rider decks so that I have a clear note of source material for the Traveling Man painting. I’ve always been fond of the Fool, who blithely steps forward onto his next step regardless of the beast biting at him, or [...]
One month ago I began painting the second layer of the row of skulls across the floor of the Angel of Death painting. Tonight I finally put down the final touches on the last of them, pulling back my chair to have a long, mostly satisfied look at what I’ve done. Most of the work [...]
I’m thankful for: My three kids, my home here in California, my family in England. My friends. Painting. Having such an extraordinary job. Yoga. Today I’m thankful that I’ve almost finished the skulls. I worked this morning and for a short time this afternoon, managing to get half way down the second of the two [...]
I’ve loosely sketched the traveler onto the panel to see how he looks in a very rough form at the actual size. It was enjoyable drawing at this scale, although I had to alter several things to become satisfied with the composition. I’m not entirely convinced that this is the way the piece will end [...]
I like to use the golden section as a compositional tool, just as the great artists of the renaissance did long ago, so it will come as no surprise that I’ve been working out how the Traveling Man painting will be arranged on the canvas. When I’m in the preparation phase of painting I’ll spend [...]
I’ve sketched a new version of the Traveling Man painting, based on a path that is receding from the picture plane over a hilltop, so that the landscape is low in the composition, and allowing a valley view that needn’t impose too much upon the dawn sky. I want to put a pair of pillar [...]
That dawn sky on Thursday of last week had a huge impact upon my thinking about how the Traveling Man painting will work. I had thought that the composition would be dominated by the road winding through a landscape, with fields and trees filling the majority of the canvas, but that sky was so extraordinarily [...]
