Michael Pearce

I’ve painted the Magician’s raised hand holding the bowl, with the first layer of some flames burning in it. To complete it I’ll glaze over this white fire with some yellow. I don’t think that the colour needs to get too complex in this case, fire being pure light; the challenge here is get the transparency of the flames correct. I mulled over designing the wand for a while, and decided not to make it too complex, because I thought it would be more of a distraction than a good addition.

The hand was a bit tricky because the fingers were stacked on top of each other, but I resolved it by simplifying the arrangement a little. I enjoyed adding some Prussian Blue to the shadows beside the lapel of the jacket and into the hair, making a very deep dark over the brown and creating a soft blue edge around the hair on the back of her head, an effect that I have loved for many years. I also glazed the rings in the belt with the blue, making it ready for white highlights tomorrow.

The Prussian Blue I mentioned yesterday has deepened and darkened the water in the pool closest to us, increasing the illusion of reflection in the water a little more. The colour of a reflected sky is deeper hued that the colour of the real sky.

I’ve added some of the same Prussian Blue to the black and the solitary  blue rags tied to the sticks that form the cross, because they needed a little variety of hue to make them feel more solid. I’ve done the same with variation of hue on the other flags too. When we describe an object as “blue” (or any other colour), we actually simplify what’s actually happening with the colour of that surface, which in fact vibrates between a few different shades of blue, and may even include any number of other colours in its surface. Even a white wall has a soft gradation of colour as we look across ts surface, so when painting any area it’s important to remember to add some different colours to make it more convincing. I’ve dropped a little glaze of the Prussian Blue into the shadows of the rocks, deepening them and creating a little warm / cool vibration. It’s a problematic paint because it tends to stain whatever it touches, so you have to be much more careful with it than with other colours.

Those little stones scattered across the ground are glazed with Indian Yellow and Naples Yellow over the white I put down yesterday, actually making them a bit too colourful, so I’ll let this layer dry then re-glaze them with a little Raw Sienna and Van Dyke Brown to drop them down. The gold glitters a bit too brightly right now!

I’ve made significant progress on the raised hand, using Foundation White and Burnt Sienna over the roughed in layer I had already done. I’ve redrawn the fingers to correct some slightly inaccurate work, and made highlights and shadows more solid. I ran out of time, so the work isn’t quite complete, but there’s enough there to use as a basis for a final layer tomorrow, cleaning up and finishing. While I hope to get the other hand with the bowl done tomorrow I’m also really looking forward to designing a twist to the handle of the Magician’s wand.

I’ve continued with the work of glazing the sky so that the blue and orange layers now sit behind a transparent layer of white mixed with a little Cobalt Blue. This makes the sky vibrate over areas of warmer and cooler colour, as the real sky does in the early morning or at twilight. I used a balled up rag to pounce the paint, making a smoother finish than can be achieved with brushes. Finally, using Foundation White, I brushed in highlights to the tops of the clouds, then pounced the white to make soft, wispy edges around them and softening the bottoms.

Finally, and very hard to see in the photo, I’ve added a little patchy white to the landscape here and there, just to make the surface feel a little more irregular.

The Silver White is working nicely as a very transparent, milky glaze over the orange and blue sky. It’s making the sky recede a lot more than it did when it was all orange, and is picking up some very nice warm / cool vibration from the brightly coloured layer beneath it. I can’t reach the top of the painting when it’s siting on the floor (it’s eight feet high), so I’ll have to move the platform over tomorrow so I can complete the work, work on the step-ladder for a couple of hours.

In addition to glazing the clouds to make them less technicoloured I’ve added a line of Foundation white along the line of the horizon where the salt flats are furthest away, making the landscape feel deeper too.