Sunday morning I took photos of Lindsay, who’s a tall and slender young lady from my drawing class, whose looks are reminiscent of some of Burne-Jones’ lovely models, like his Sibyl in the panel painting to the left. Although I’m particularly impressed by the grace of Aesthetic movement paintings, I don’t want to imitate them, [...]
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 [...]
I’ve put down the first rough layer of Foundation White that will become the Magician’s bare feet. Pretty plain right now, they’ll be re-drawn and get a couple of layers more before they’re complete. I’m quite pleased to get them started, because they have needed attention for such a long time during the process of [...]
With the new semester comes great buzz; new students appear in new classes and a flurry of activity takes place to make sure that everything is working properly and studies begin smoothly. I’ve been hard pressed to paint anything much, but did get started on work on the Magician painting, sketching in some of the [...]
I’ve finished the first draft of the Empress’ most recent face, now painting my daughter in the role of the main character, (she got a crick in her neck from keeping her head in that position while I tried to match her head to the position of the painting). Re-working the head has been a [...]
The warm yellow and orange paint I’ve added to the dresses so far looks incredibly bright over the gray tones that have been the work of the last couple of months. I’ll continue adding the colours onto all the dresses and the skin, then glaze them back with a transparent white that will unify them [...]
Last night I visited Continental Art Supply over in Reseda to attend a special event there to meet representatives from major paint and art supply companies, among others Art Graham of M. Graham paint. He was, as always, charming company, filled with the self-assurance of a man who knows his work is well done, quietly [...]
The sky has been painted gray in preparation for a coat of Cobalt Blue, which is the favorite (and most expensive) blue chosen by Alma Tadema for those intense, richly vibrant skies that set off the marble in the foreground of his classic paintings. This evening I picked up two 150ml tubes made by M. [...]
My student Casey Hickman has started his blog, documenting his work on the Virtues mural, which now has a blue-grey sky based in over most of the upper half of the canvas. As expected with a painting so large, it’s coming along slowly, but moving in the right direction; I can better see how the composition [...]
I’ve continued with the marble, adding a soft glaze of Iron Oxide Red around the breaks between the slabs, ragging off and lining the cracks, letting the rusty colour dry, then re-lining the cracks with Raw Sienna, softening the line with my finger, then re-establishing it inconsistently along the seam. Using a OO Silver brand [...]
