I’ve been sketching a design for the traveler’s water bottle, doing this prep work not least because it’s partly covered by his jacket. It would be very difficult to render a partially covered interlace that felt right directly onto the painting without figuring it out first. This is fun work to do, if a little [...]
The Traveler has gained some jeans and a flask at his belt. This first layer is a little bright, so I’ll drop it back a bit later on with some Van Dyke Brown to deepen the shadows. I’ve added highlights to the jacket so that I can re-glaze it with the iron oxide then a [...]
The biggest change to the painting resulting from yesterday’s work is that the valley floor has finally become an ocean, ending my vacillation about whether or not this should be land or sea. The water is a little light right now, but will work well with a second layer of green and blue mixed with [...]
I’ve decided that the traveler is carrying a dagger at his thigh – the shape materialized from the sketched first layer and I liked it, so I emphasized it on the canvas while I was putting a layer of blue down to colour his trousers and I’ll apply a nice Celtic design for the scabbard’s [...]
A second visit to the creation of a stone pathway worked out pretty well, resulting in this pebble track leading to the cliff’s edge. I wanted to make sure that the traveler’s journey was clearly to the precipice, not onward along the side – having changed the landscape a week ago fixed the problematic composition [...]
A very productive day in the studio! I did a lot of cleanup work this evening, fixing the figure up with some black shoes, deepening the shadows of his bag, clarifying the shadows of the jacket, glazing his over-white shirt with some dirty grey and painting his pants with a layer of grey. (Blues next). [...]
. . . . . . . . . It’s strange that time can evaporate so quickly when we are absorbed in tasks that occupy our attention above all other things – I spent two or three hours painting these daisies and roses without noticing that the whole morning was gone. On the left I’ve [...]
My easel is very large and I have always extolled its virtues, but yesterday it suffered a total disaster when one of the pulleys used to pull up the shelf that holds the canvas snapped – made from cheap cast metal, it simply couldn’t take the weight of the painting, which crashed down to the [...]
My student Cameron pointed out that the lush foliage in this painting reminds him of Millais’ Ophelia, which is exhibited at the Tate National in London. It’s a beautiful painting of the drowning of Hamlet’s lover, described in poetic detail by Shakespeare in the play. “There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows [...]
At last I’ve painted over the last of the oxide base coat and the painting is moving into the final phases. I’ve given myself permission to paint fantasy into my work, revisiting my youth when I loved Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and Michael Moorcock’s Chronicles. Why not? I’ve finally got to the point where [...]
