Today was crazed, in a good way. It started right off the bat at nine by setting up for a photo shoot for the Virtues painting, with my student Devon modeling for the four cardinals, Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence and Justice. I loved the shot we got for Temperance – she looks like a ballerina with [...]
I’m swamped with administrative work for the new semester, so painting has had to wait for a short time until we get started. I’m particularly looking forward to beginning my Life Painting and Drawing classes, because working from a model in the studio offers a greater challenge to the artist because of the slight (although [...]
Do you remember Slartibartfast’s love of fjords? (He was the eccentric designer responsible for Norway in The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy) I felt a bit like him today while painting the detailed edges of the wings, where the long delicate strands of the peacock feathers trail out from the body of the wings. Using [...]
The first of the eight by eights has been washed with distilled water and now leans against the studio wall drying. I hope that Ethan will be able to help me with the gesso tomorrow so that I can start drawing sooner rather than later. I didn’t get much painting done today, although I did [...]
We had a very busy day in the studio. Ethan and Joseph were occupied with the second coat of gesso on the big Virtues canvas, then Joe got into stretching the third of the eight foot square canvas that Cyn McCurry sent from Texas onto its panel, ready for a wash of distilled water prior [...]
Tagged rosicrucianThe first layer of feathers reaches to the top of the left wing, leading me to much head scratching and sitting and looking at the painting in order to figure out what to do with the structure of the wings around the top of the arms and shoulders. I want the wings to feel more [...]
More peacock feathers have emerged on the wings, after trying out a green glaze with a little Iron Oxide Red and some Cobalt Blue to create the eyes. I’m going to try a little white highlighting, then a glaze of Ultra Blue to finish them off. On the left there’s another batch of the feathers [...]
A small, very light package arrived from China yesterday, filled with beautiful green and blue peacock feathers, so I’ve re-started work on the wings because they were so overly simple and flat compared to the rest of the painting. So far I’m keeping the work monochromatic, waiting to add the classic eye shape of peacock [...]
I enlisted my kids to help put the first coat of gesso onto the big canvas. They’re really good at helping me in the studio, seldom complaining and usually cheerful, especially when there are donuts and lunch offered as tasty treats. After lunch I shot photos of Hayley, one of my drawing students, who modeled [...]
Following an entertaining family effort (my kids and Joseph with squirt bottles filled with distilled water) to give the big canvas a wash so that the creases drop out and the canvas gets a little tighter, Joseph worked on gessoing while I turned to the other side of the studio to continue to paint the leaves at [...]
