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Working on a secret portrait

January 16, 2010 in Blogging, Creativity, Daily Painting, Editorials, Materials, Process, Techniques, painting | 1 comment

I know it looks like I’m not doing as much here, what with the filling up of the space with crap out how it sucks to have a good painting. I know some people were like, “Yeah, I totally GET that,” while others were all, “Boo fucking hoo, jackass.” Cie la vie.

It remains that it IS hard to follow up. I suspect much of a book I’ve been meaning to get, Art and Fear, is about this very subject. I’ll probably read it and be thinking in my head the whole time, “Yeah, yup, uh huh, totally, exactly, YEAH, that’s me,” on and on. It’s a good ego stroke. And if there’s something I like, it’s to be stroked.

So, anyway, I do have something to say that actually ties in to the title of this post. I’m working on another portrait, but I can’t reveal it. Though the recipient, I guarantee, won’t come here… I suppose I can wait. Thought I don’t like to not have regular posts.

So far, I’ve done my color study in The GIMP (Photoshop-like app for Linux), I’ve done a charcoal drawing, and I went a little further with this one and something I’m trying to see if I can get my on-demand drawing skills back up to where they used to be.

(Back when I was in the Navy and single and bored and living in the barracks, I drew. And drew. And drew! It got to where I could whip out any ‘ol picture and make a really good drawing/likeness – in PEN – in the first pass. Those were the days of drawing for hours each day. Those were days that are looooooong gone.)

Instead of doing the drawing from my computer screen (how do YOU do commissions when all you get is a JPG?), I printed it out on my laser printer. I like to use it because it’s black and white and lets me do my drawing without the distraction of color. Oh, and color laser printers are farking expensive.

So, anyway, I tells Maude, ya see, that Doris told me that Ethel tells her that she overheard Frankie and he said…

Oh, sorry. I like to ramble at times.

I did a charcoal drawing directly on the canvas, trying to match the size of the printout exactly. Then, using tracing paper, I traced the printout and laid it over my charcoal drawing. Hmmm, I was pretty close on most things, but was off on a few key things – one of the eyes, the angle of the nose, and the neck line. But I was pretty close overall, and mostly pleased with myself.

[stops for applause, takes a bow]

Charcoal, in case you don’t know, comes off the canvas in a stiff breeze, unlike graphite (your trusty #2 pencil for you non-artists). I use a paper towel and it wipes right off. So I twisted the paper towel and selectively erased some parts and came back in with the vine charcoal and gave it another go. Then replaced the tracing paper to see how well I did. I got everything but one eye this time. Back at it again and I think I got it nailed.

I think this method keeps me honest in my drawing skills but also lets me quickly troubleshoot problem areas.

And, in all honesty, the first time I came through with the tracing paper I ended up wiping the charcoal off of the ENTIRE CANVAS. Ouch. It was that bad. The next time through, I relied less on measuring and more on just looking, feeling. Use the Force, Luke!

A coat of fixative to secure the charcoal in place and we’re set for a first layer of paint.

After the reveal, I’ll upload the process pics (yes, I have process pics!).

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Thinking about ditching ivory black

October 3, 2009 in Creativity, Editorials, Materials, Techniques, painting | No comments

Since doing my last painting in Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black, and Titanium White, I’ve been giving thought to the limitations of that palette – both good and bad.

First, I felt my colors were really low key. But that forced me to focus on values more than color, which I definitely need. But I wanted a little more variety, more options in what I’m mixing. So I started to dig.

I Googled my palette on Google Image Search and came up with several examples of people using this palette, but also some people using additional colors. So I peered down the rabbit hole and continued my search through the maze. Slowly, the maze started to simplify and I came to some conclusions.

Mostly, I need to switch blacks. Ivory black was good but very dull. “These Are Days” has a couple of dull spots where I came back in to fix the value with Ivory Black vs. my original mixture of Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine (“colorful black”). The colorful black was nice and shiny and didn’t dry as purple as it looked when it was wet.

I discovered that Payne’s Gray is (essentially) Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine. And it has a slightly purplish tone to it when you mix in white. That would have done wonders for the girl’s sweater (which, you can see, was actually a light purple, not yellow, but I couldn’t mix purple without blue, and Ivory Black insisted on making a neutral gray).

Then I wondered to myself, “Self, what about green?” Hmm, without blue, it seemed I was in a pickle. Then my rabbit hole ended on a thread about copying Velasquez – a limited palette of Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna. That’s it. You mix your black from Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna. You mix your greens my washing blue over the underpainting – done in Yellow Ochre.

A ha! There’s that sneaky little devil. I knew I’d find you, green!

Seems that ditching black altogether and mixing Payne’s Gray for myself from Ultramarine and Sienna is the way to go. Very simple, very clean, and might do wonders for me. Still won’t do orange very well (Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre don’t mix to a very orangey orange), but that’s okay. I don’t need it right now. And I’ll be able to do some good stuff for my next painting, concentrating more on values and less on color.

So long, Ivory Black, and thanks for the fish.

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Frustration

September 27, 2009 in Creativity, Daily Painting, Materials, exercise, painting | No comments

“Frustration,” 18″ x 24″, oil on canvas, $1250

frustration

Eventually, you do an exercise in an art class or workshop where you paint an emotion. That’s not really what I did here. This painting is how I see “frustration” and how I experience it, though I didn’t quite know until I painted it.

It was not an exercise in frustration. It was quite enjoyable to paint.

Some cool things about this painting:

  • it is entirely done in cyan, magenta, yellow, and white
  • the background is magenta (rose) with a little dab of cyan (cobalt blue)
    • To make the white lines pop, I added the slightest touch of yellow, careful not to overdo it
  • the boxes were done with a palette knife (very thickly)
  • there are some subtle details not visible in the photo
  • the boxes represent a massive frustration that I can’t shake

Now that I’ve painted it, hopefully it will leave me alone and let me move on to other paintings, stop occupying that little space that is set on “ad infinitum” and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out where the switch or dial is to change it up.

But it’s okay now. I think.

How does this painting make you feel?

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Blue and yellow don’t make green?

January 27, 2008 in Editorials, Materials, Techniques | No comments

I know there’s a book called, “Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green.” I’m not talking about that book. Well, sorta, in a roundabout way. I’m here to talk about colors a bit.

There’s this site I read quite a bit that has a lot of info about colors, written by some dude named Bruce MacEvoy. He seems to call bullshit on a lot of theory you see out there, and he’s a little arrogant himself, but what I like about him is that he’s actually done some experiments instead of just spouting theory. I really like how he showed the relationships on a color wheel, and how colors saturate/desaturate in a U-shape pattern when mixed. Then he actually got a mass spectrophotometer to measure wavelengths and plotted that on a curve!

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/IMG/satcurve.gif

saturation curve

Magnificent data, and my #1 takeaway from this is that GREEN is actually a primary color because you can not make a bright green by mixing yellow and blue, and the graph is the proof. The more green you are, the lower the saturation. He even shows a mixed green vs. a tube green on a color wheel to show you the difference. And look how much separation there is between yellow and blue vs. the yellow and red.

I still like the “old masters” portrait palette of ochre, sienna, and black, but I also have been on a “cyan / magenta / yellow are the primary colors” kick, citing professional printing and computer technology as proof that CMYK works. And it does, but we don’t paint in pure, brilliant pigments in a halftone. But the proof is in the pudding, and I am swayed by rigorous, scientific evidence. The only downside I can see is that Bruce uses watercolors where I prefer oils. Not sure how much of a difference that will make.

A Review on Derwent drawing pencils

August 21, 2007 in Materials, Reviews, Tools | No comments

Derwent drawing pencils are the soft, buttery pencils – not quite colored pencils, not quite pastel pencils, and definitely not graphite pencils. They come in a variety of colors nowadays, too. I’ve used my set of Derwent drawing pencils that came in my 24 Pencil Sketching Collection – and then I went out and bought a couple more colors of the drawing pencils.

Derwent pencil set

I was inspired to purchase these pencils from last year’s portrait drawing thread over on WetCanvas – done by moderator Al for his “portraits in three part harmony” class last year. It wasn’t much of a “class,” per se, but it was interesting to use a new medium for portraiture! Some people had a hard time finding the right pencils but I got mine from my local JoAnn Fabrics (your local Michael’s should also have singles – you can also get them at DickBlick.com).

To be fair, the set does contain other drawing/sketching materials but I’ve hardly used them. I tried the graphite that you can get wet (“graphitone”) and I found it less than satisfactory. I’ve always found that wetting my drawing surface ruins it for later drawing. Your mileage may vary. I don’t understand how the three “wash” pencils differ from the graphitone; however, like I said, no thank you when it comes to getting my drawing surface wet.

The “pastel pencils” are too chalky for my tastes. I think the white pastel pencil would work well in conjunction with the black charcoal pencils, though, and I plan to try a portrait using said combination. Tony Ryder seems to like white pastel with black charcoal, so it must be good (Tony’s book is FAB-U-LOUS).

A real gem that I’ve come to really enjoy are the 4 sticks of charcoal – sticks, no wood (though there are three charcoal pencils surrounded by wood). When I get going in charcoal, I really get going and I like to have the medium all over my hands. Call me crazy but that’s how I like my charcoal. The charcoal isn’t as good as the vine charcoal made from pure willow that I also have and doesn’t erase as neatly as vine charcoal, but there’s a lot there and it’s a lot sturdier than vine charcoal. Pick your charcoal according to your goals.

CONs:
-Graphitone is lame
-would be better with more Derwent drawing pencils

PROs:
-good variety for experimentation
-relatively inexpensive for the quality