In the studio I’ve worked on the flesh of the hanged man a little more, adding whites into the highlights and blue into the shadows and the hair. I’ve scraped plenty of Cadmium Red into the lower arm, reasoning that because he’s hanging upside down his blood would have descended to the lowest parts of [...]
Adding highlights in Foundation White to the flesh that went down yesterday is making the figure start to come to life. I’ve extended the flesh across his belly and all the way down the lower arm. I’ll need to move the platform over so I can get to the top of the painting and work [...]
The first layer of the skin has covered the Hanged Man’s head and chest. I mixed a simple flesh base using Vermilion, Cadmium Orange and Foundation White, then made a dark and light version of it by adding more or less white. Next to it I made some Burnt Sienna and some Raw Umber for [...]
I’m having a great time painting the landscape behind the hanged man, which has populated itself with buildings and trees, and mountains that resemble the ones I see around me here at the edge of the Malibu range. I love the way these mountains stack up, fading layer by layer as they fall away into [...]
It’s been a busy week introducing new students to their classes and getting everything in order. We’ve been experimenting with the camera obscura to see what kind of results we can get out of it, finding that having some theatre lights aimed at the model really helps to create a stronger image. Joe wants to [...]
After a few days of humming and hahing I’ve committed to editing the Traveler and Magician paintings from their earlier square composition. Now rectangles, the compositions look much better balanced, with the focus of attention moving down to the sun and the hand and face of the Traveler, while in the Magician the relationship of [...]
I’ve started work on the Hanged Man, painting a first layer of Raw Umber to start defining the figure. I’m particularly happy to see the foreshortening of the figure working well. Pitture infamanti were part of a tradition that was designed to cause humiliation to its target by displaying in public the shame of the [...]
Donna Granata visited the studio yesterday to shoot the portrait photos for the Focus on the Masters archive that I mentioned a couple of days ago. I enjoyed her company very much, she’s great fun to chat with. I’m looking forward to seeing what the pictures look like; she’s going to show the portrait in [...]
The quest for foliage continues, and I’ve been adding dark shadows into the foliage on the right side of the painting, building substance and getting further away from the very decorative leaves that were there before. In the photo you can see where the new edge of the painting is (regular visitors will remember I [...]
After a year or so of looking at the the giant mural of the virtues and thinking to myself, “Wow, I should probably do some painting on that…”, I’m officially calling it quits on the thing and painting it over with at least three other paintings. I can use the blue skies in these other [...]
