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’ve spent a few hours working the sky above the mountains to create a bright horizon that fades upward into a darker sky. The top right corner of the painting is going to increase in brightness as I make my way up the height of the canvas, ending up brighter than the left, which I [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
This was the most nerve-racking but fastest photo shoot I’ve done so far, but I think we laughed more than most of the other shoots too. It was very straightforward in essence, just one model (Aaron again, except he’s lost twenty pounds and looks completely different compared to when he posed for the Emperor in [...]
I spent some time bringing white and grey to the neck, hair, shirt, jacket and pants to bring some substance to these areas of the painting, first noticing that Amelia’s neck was over-simplified and in need of re-modeling. Shaping the neck with hair on the left side, I’ve reworked the highlights to bring more complex [...]
We’ve stretched the canvas over the panel ready for the Priestess, now we need to give it a few coats of gesso before the drawing begins. Ally has drawings of the dress made and Veronica has been measured for the fit, so as soon as it’s stitched and the hat made we’ll be ready to [...]
After a tiring weekend dealing with excessive rain that caused all sorts of trouble including a leaking roof close to the new paintings, everything is now back to normal and we were able to continue as planned, so Brian Stethem came in this morning for a delightfully problem free photo shoot. I’ll post the results [...]
