Jetlag has made me feel blurry and I’ve avoided the studio in favour of more adrenaline oriented activities so I can throw this tiredness off as soon as possible. I’ve also got to pay attention to some important administrative work for the art department at the university, so I need to divide my time carefully for the next few days between studio and office so I can focus on how we can provide students with a more effective program that gives them a really solid grounding in the studio techniques they need to learn.
The Angel shows some inconsistency in the skulls – those I did before Christmas are grayer and a little looser than the ones I’m working on now. I will need to be careful to rework those that are in that double band in the foreground to make them consistent with the new skulls. The first ones also got some Ultramarine Blue and Raw Sienna glazes wiped onto them when I was uncertain about the landscape and experimenting with it; before committing to the ocean of skulls that I’m now producing. The solution to that is obvious: simply add some of those two glazes into the new skulls so they match; traditional painters often choose to make their shadows cool and their highlights warm (blues and greens tend to feel cooler, while browns, yellows and reds feel warmer) so this will add some nice variation to the boney surfaces, while also making them feel more realistic and convincing.
Consistency is important in the production of the painting: if different methods are used in different areas the painting will feel disjointed and clumsy. I want this painting to feel unified and to produce an illusion that we are catching a glimpse of another reality, as if we are looking through a portal into another world.
