Blues

photoHere we go, Introducing Prussian blue to the wing has made already made a huge difference to the feel of the skeleton, making the white of the bones pop out from the wing most effectively. I love the way blues sit over browns, there’s so much range from warmth to cool and dark to light. Prussian blue has the added advantage of offering a beautifully transparent glaze with a really dark, almost black flavour when it’s used as a thicker pigment. I couldn’t get both wings done this afternoon, with limited time in the studio, but feel pretty good about what I got done, and thoroughly enjoyed doing the work.

Once I finish the blue glaze over the other wing I’ll move into repainting the whites of the bones to make the definition of the bones from the background clearer.

The picture is shot at a strange angle because of the terrible lighting glare that was on the painting this afternoon. I couldn’t really control it the way I needed to because my students have to finish their work ready for finals in one week. The best of them are working really hard to get their work to look fantastic, with dramatic results.

Making good art is ninety eight percent hard work, and one percent good ideas. The remaining one precent is reserved for sheer blind good luck.

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Iron Oxide

ironoxidesky ironoxidesealer

I got lots of work done pretty quickly during the afternoon yesterday. The sky is shaping up well with a new layer of transparent Iron Oxide helping it to look quite dramatic, but it’s still lacking a few more layers of colour. Glaze painting is a slow process of building layer after layer into the surface.

Meanwhile, I’ve used the same transparent Iron Oxide to seal my completed sketch of the Traveler, finding out that my favorite paint manufacturer (Graham) doesn’t have this pigment in a tube anything larger than a 1.25 ml! The horror! I’ll use one of these teeny little tubes in one go when working on a canvas this size.

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Images of the Apocalyptic

fourhorsemenWe’re opening a show of spectacular woodblock prints in the gallery this weekend that have made a big impression on the people who have passed through the gallery while we were busy installing the exhibit, not to mention the impression they’ve made on me. Patrick Merrill is an amazing printmaker, making huge images based on the apocalyptic visions described in the Book of Revelation, a particularly arcane text at the end of the New Testament.

This image is his Four Horsemen, by no means the largest of the works in his exhibit, which are up to twelve high.

If you’re near Thousand Oaks, California, come to the gallery this Saturday evening at 7pm for the opening reception, meet Patrick and enjoy good company and good food.

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Fool and the Black Sky

blackskyatravelersketchRemember those large pallette knives I bought at Continental last week? I’ve been using the long thin one to scrape on lead white for juicy cloud highlights. First I’ll put the paint onto the canvas using a small sized knife, then use the big one to get some lovely textures, very cloudy. A little rag work here and there to soften things and the first stage of the sky is done. Once dried I’ll start glazing, then re-establish the bright highlights, avoiding reds, which bleed through whites laid over them with alacrity.

I’ve also been busy transferring the image of Cody to the canvas for the Traveler piece. I’m particularly happy with the composition of the painting because everything is falling very well onto the golden section construction lines and nodes, including the staff he carries over his shoulder which I’ve only had to move very slightly to make it fit to a node line. Pretty scruffy right now, with all the sketchy first draft underneath the new work, but that will soon be gone when I put the first rendering down in a Van Dyke Brown. Presently I’m favoring the Van Dyke Brown as a first layer because of its warmth.

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Shoot

Taking pictures of Cody for reference for the Traveler went well, so I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to get moving with the painting once I grid out the canvas and draw the man in the setting. As usual I visited the studio this morning before I ran (I’ll run a mile most mornings, then practice yoga) and really enjoyed seeing the two pieces together. After a month of skulls it’s a great pleasure to move on into something else for a while.

I think the next work I’ll do to the Angel will be to add white highlights with the knife – when working on clouds I love the effect I get from glazing over rich layers of white, the glaze sits into the valleys, leaving the white popping up out of the dark.

I’m into a quite different creative endeavor today – roasting a leg of lamb for the first time! Wish me luck!

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Sky

While waiting for my student to arrive to be photographed I painted a greyscale sky behind death. I let it get pretty dark so that there is an ominous sense to it, with cracks of light appearing in the sky behind the figure. He doesn’t have any hands at the moment because it would be far too fiddly to constantly repair all those little bones, so instead I’ll paint the sky then add the hands afterwards. If you’ve been wondering why the legs aren’t done yet, it’s the same reason – why bother to  do the work when it’s going to take a beating from all the work on the landscape.

To my horror, I think I’m going to paint still more skulls to fill the entire bottom left corner, so the Angel is standing upon a large heap of them, not simply a line. Much more dramatic. Much more work on skulls.

To alleviate from dying of skull damage I’ve moved the Traveling Man onto the easel while I use my platform to work on Death’s sky. I changed the drawing a little since the last post, defining the landscape a bit more carefully and getting a much clearer sense of how the figure needs to be posed. Cody says he’ll be here at five thirty this evening for pictures, which I’m really looking forward to shooting.

A bad day in the studio is better than a good day fishing…

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Hella sunset

Looking through my files of photo reference materials I found this shot of the Stones of Steness, on Orkney, which brought back some great memories of midsummer sunset on the islands.Steness23delete I can use this as a source for the sky in the Traveler.

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Fool

tarotfoolsI’m posting a couple of pictures of the Fool from the Marseille and the Waite Rider decks so that I have a clear note of source material for the Traveling Man painting. I’ve always been fond of the Fool, who blithely steps forward onto his next step regardless of the beast biting at him, or the precipice before him – I like the blindly heroic nature of the character.

This afternoon I’ll shoot pictures of my student Cody, who I think will do very well as the traveler in the painting. It will be nice to get back to painting a figure after all these bones.

I’ve also been digging through my pictures of Death Valley for landscapes, finding a few useful epic views that might be useful, but I’m also looking for images of plants (poppies?) that can work in the foreground of the Angel of Death.

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A month of skulls

One month ago I began painting the second layer of the row of skulls across the floor of the Angel of Death painting. Tonight I finally put down the final touches on the last of them, pulling back my chair to have a long, mostly satisfied look at what I’ve done. Most of the work looks pretty good, but there are a few problems here and there which are going to have to be fixed, big time. I can’t allow them to rest in the state they’re in right now, but tonight I’m going to go to a bar and have a glass of champagne, and maybe smoke a Romeo y Julieta cigar to celebrate the conclusion of this stage of the painting.

skullsinline

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Thanksgiving

I’m thankful for:

My three kids, my home here in California, my family in England.

My friends.

Painting.

Having such an extraordinary job.

Yoga.

Today I’m thankful that I’ve almost finished the skulls. I worked this morning and for a short time this afternoon, managing to get half way down the second of the two complete skulls, leaving me two half skulls and the lower half to complete.

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