Michael Pearce

So close now! I’ve added more foliage to the right side where the convergence of sky, land and foreground was creating a disturbing node too close to the edge of the painting – now the foliage is there it covers the intersection and directs the eye toward the acacia above, so the pleasant wave like composition is emphasized. Much better! Tomorrow I’ll put some greens onto the grey leaves and finish up for now.

I’ve added some purple into the distant mountains, dry-brushed on, then an additional layer of dry-brushed white to soften it and blend it to the background.

The poppies have had another layer of reds and dark brown to make them more solid, and the california orange poppies have had a touch of darker orange. I glazed the forget-me-nots with a blue. Now the mountains are bluer they are better balanced in the painting.

I turned the roses red and added lots of new en grisaille flowers to the painting. On the right, mingled with the roses, a laurel, used by the Greeks and Romans to celebrate victory. Above the roses a spread of tiny forget-me-nots, for remembrance. Behind the traveler I added some Opium poppies that will go a rich red, obviously for forgetfulness and dreaming, then some California poppies for sleep (they’ll be orange).

The painting is beginning to feel quite rich. There’s plenty of imagery to see, lots of detail. I almost forgot to mention that I also added a moth and a ladybird amongst the leaves, but I leave it to you to find them when you see the painting.

These have turned out pretty well so far. I’ve worked most of the day getting the dark shadows around the flower heads done, adding a yellow and brown centre to each one, and laying down some greens and browns over the leaves. I’ve included some deadheads in this bush to add some rhythm to the piece, so that there’s somewhere for your eye to go as you look at the work.

I added some more shadow to the objects at the traveler’s waist so that they would feel more behind the jacket flap, but I noticed that I’d made an error to the Celtic interlace on the flask, so I had to alter that, which made it bright again, so now I’ll glaze a little oxide over it again to drop it back into the shade. I’ll also need to use a dark blue to deepen those shadows around the bottle and jacket.

I lightened the shoe with a little grey so that it wasn’t so flat, because it was pulling undeserved focus to itself. The jeans at his ankles now are frayed and dangling a few loose threads, and the soles of his shoes are a little darker, again to lessen the importance of the foot so that we are more drawn to his face and hand.

It’s time to move onto doing detail work now – the lovely little secrets that people delight in discovering: ladybirds, insects, forget-me-nots…

Finally, alongside the Traveler as he is now, here’s a reminder of what’s coming next – time to add some more skulls to the angel…

More roses en grisaille.

This is tiring work, but it’s becoming more fluid as I do more of it. I’m noticing that my painting is speeding up in application, but that I’m at the stage of the painting where I’m spending longer periods of time simply looking at the piece to work out what needs to be done to complete it.

As the roses spread across to the edge of the canvas I’m pondering how the background will work. I think I need to put a bit more foliage on the right, above the foreground roses and infringing on the cliff edge so those rocks are emerging from bushes, but I’m not certain yet how this will emerge.

Somehow the morning slipped away incredibly fast, and I only got this terre verte over the grey grass and the first layer of three dandelions done. I enjoyed the dandelions – a nice soft grey first, thin and wispy, then a centre of raw sienna (with a tiny bit of Van Dyke Brown to darken it) smudged on with my finger. Next I used a striping brush to begin the fine lines that will sit beneath the next layer of pure feathery white about the outside of the sphere. You can see one of them in the photo on the left side.

I fixed the hemmed edge of the leather coat where the new grey layer borders the dagger, putting a slight curve into the previously dead straight line of the jacket. I’ll need to repaint the landscape of the far away bay coastline later where I used some grey to cut into the previous layer.

I have other obligations this afternoon, so I hope to get back into  the studio this evening. Even so, the grass looks good, needing only a layer of yellow / green to complete it.

I got to work at about eleven and quickly got down to painting rose leaves and bringing the foreground closer to completion. It’s slow work that requires concentration, so I’m taking breaks for that ginseng tea and occasional wandering nearby the studio. I pulled some crabgrass out of the ground next to the creek and discovered some clover that will be useful for reference later. Of course the clover withered by the time I was ready to paint it, so I’ll have to get more tomorrow. Painting the leaves and grass went well, and I’ll make my usual note here that this is painted en grisaille, so it’s overly bright, waiting for a layer of yellow, green and iron oxide reds to complete the work. It took a long time to get this far, so I expect to spend the day tomorrow doing the same kind of work in order to complete these flowers.

As a break from painting the leaves tomorrow I think I’ll find a ladybird (in America they’re ladybugs, who knows why there’s this distinction. Two nations divided by a common language…) and add a few to the left side roses, and perhaps some aphids might make it into the painting too. I want this to be a painting which people can sit in front of for a long time, discovering its secrets and delighting in them. I guess that all the work is a gift to everybody who looks at the piece.

I got so much work done today! Major changes to the painting, including lots of foliage on the left and right sides, a total re-invention of the cliff edge so that there are large boulders sticking out of the grass and flowers, extra length to the traveler’s trousers, a second belt, a reworked water bottle, a second layer on the pommel of the dagger, and an extra length to the right side of his coat.

Now I’m going to an Indian restaurant for dinner with friends.

I must get some spectacles for this kind of detailed close-up work. Very tricky, I must have deleted the interlace on the knife pommel three or four times before finally figuring out what to do – it’s a pretty small area, so fitting all the little ribbons into their correct places in the pattern is quite fiddly.

I’ve been drinking ginseng green tea which seems to help with concentration (and makes me eat less, it seems). In comparison the water flask was much easier, because you can’t see the whole pattern and it’s comparatively larger than the knife work.

I’ll let this dry then rework the surfaces to give them more solidity and substance, dropping shadows in the edges that face away from the sun, and highlights onto the high edges that face toward it. My plan for the rest of the day is to work on painting grass and daisies on the cliff behind the traveler.

I’ve made a few changes to the painting following a few days with my kids beside the ocean in Malibu. In the first picture you can see that the water has highlights of reflected light from the cloud base above, giving it some variety and depth. I’ve begun work on deleting the odd cliff structure I put on the right hand side – I’m not sure quite what I was thinking doing that; it was wildly cramping the edge of the painting and drawing focus from the traveling man. Now that there’s a layer of Ceramic white over it I can re-do the sky then add the acacia trees back into the composition.

I didn’t get to the water bottle knot-work, but did design a nice piece of work for the handle of the knife (second picture), and started rendering it in Van Dyke Brown over the blank oval (third picture). I think this will do very well. Once I’ve finished the work on the first layer of the pommel I’ll move back to the water bottle and get the base rendering of that knot done. I’m enjoying this Celtic work very much; I love the romantic quality it brings to the piece and get a great deal of satisfaction from the technical side of the work, which is quite fiddly and requires concentrated effort to get it right, especially when drawing it freehand in paint.