Michael Pearce

Derek did a fantastic job today shooting the video for the Ancestors project. I liked the results we got very much, and enjoyed the pleasant company of six friends who came over to sit as our eye models. We had a great time getting super close shots of their eyes making slight movements in the screen, finding amusing moments with winking, smiling and shocked expressions. I think it’s going to do exactly what I hoped, with these eyes scanning the courtyard of the university and alternately making people nervous or entertaining them. We used a heavy blue-coloured sidelight and an orange / brick-coloured up-light to make the lighting work well within the night-time environment where the screen is placed. It ended up looking not unlike one of my paintings.

This evening I got back to the studio to place a blue glaze over the birches. The first shot shows the painting with the Ultramarine Blue glaze over the background. The second shows the trees after the blue has been wiped out with a rag and highlights added in white. I’ll add a little green and brown to add flavor to the trunks later. Look to a couple of posts earlier to see the difference this has made.

  

I’ve painted trees for several hours, working on the small branches on the left side of the painting then deciding that I didn’t like the angular gesture they brought to the piece, and repainting the darkness between the trees. In this piece I prefer the large birch shapes with the simpler outlines and opportunity for split trunks. I tried putting the trees behind the orb as ghostly silhouettes but wasn’t pleased with it because the physics were all wrong – if the orb is providing all the light it should obviously lay over the top of the things it’s illuminating.

Three quarters of the second layer of the trees is done. I’m pretty pleased with it. I will start thinking about the ground behind the stones next, whether  there is undergrowth to add to the work or if it stays dark around the base of the trees.

Being white, the trees still appear wildly bright, pulling the background far too much to the front of the piece. As soon as I can I’ll glaze them to make them drop back, making them far more discrete.

I couldn’t face doing any more to the skeleton today, so I turned my attention to Amelia, because I really like the idea of putting her in a forest clearing instead of hanging in the void. I laid down simple grey silhouettes of tall birch trees, lacking their small branches at present, but with the body of the trunks complete, expecting to add highlights in the next day or two.

I’m enjoying placing the figure in a more substantial three dimensional world, giving her space some depth and improving the sense of place that was lacking before. I remember doing something similar to the Fama painting a while ago, when adding a seascape and some shadows really made the painting. Here the trees clearly require a lot more detail than the landscape in Fama did, but I think they will be fun to bring to life.