Still-Life With a Tea Pot (June 30, 2011)

"Separated" (In progress, detail), Oil on Canvas, 2011

I've finally settled on a title for this painting. The concept was in place from the beginning but I was searching for a title that would be the most explanatory without being too obvious. Don't mind the lighting, the tea pot is not painted as light in person. Things are moving along and I'm about halfway finished. The hardest parts are the metal container and just turning those edges on the tea pot, which I haven't done yet. The only object that's basically done is the metal lid, everything else needs more layers and revision. So far so good though...

Still-Life With a Tea Pot

Here's the first layer of paint for my latest still-life (detail). You can see the dead colour layer as well. I feel myself making a lot of progress with technique, and that's really making this much more enjoyable than previous paintings.

The Next Painting

I've been busy entering shows/competitions lately so I haven't had anything to blog about for a while but there should be another portrait in the works soon...In the next 2 weeks if I stay on top of things. I've been planning a full length portrait of my brother which will be fairly large. That's a scary thing for me because I haven't done anything like that in years--I work much smaller these days. But I think a larger scale portrait is necessary for me right now just to take things up a notch. The other thing I'm worried about is buying more brushes since I only have sizes for smaller scale paintings. I'll need a few large brushes and if you're a painter you know that can get very expensive indeed. It's all for a worthy cause though and I can't wait to start!

New Self-Portrait: It's Finished!

Blogger really doesn't show these pictures well at all but here it is. It's all done and now I have to find something else to start. I've been wanting to do a life size portrait from head to toe for a long time so I think I'll do that next but I'd like to do some drawing in between. Thanks to everyone who checked out my work here and stay tuned!

New Self-Portrait Painting (In Progress) Part 4

Since my last post, I've done my hair, the dishes in the cabinet, the background, the chair, and a bit of my left earring. You can see there's a lot of glare from the sun. I'm hoping I can get this done by Sunday because it needs to dry and get a retouch varnish.

New Self-Portrait Painting (In Progress) Part 3

A lot has progressed since the last update and I think I'm halfway there. I need to do more on the face and other parts but I thought I'd oil out some areas first using linseed oil so I could see the correct values again. Right now my favourite part is the top I'm wearing because I really got that satin texture right, YAY! I'll post detail shots later on. Also as a result of oiling out, some mistakes popped up. That "mustache" looking part, for example, only showed itself after oiling out so I have to fix it. Could you imagine me doing the final varnish and mistakes like that one popping up? And no time to fix it??? So glad I'm avoiding that!

New Self-Portrait Painting (In Progress) Part 2

This is actually my 2nd attempt at the face, I won't bother showing you the first. It was really tight and stiff before. I hated it so much I tried to sand it down but I just painted over it. I have renewed faith in this painting and my skills in general, lol. For anyone who's curious, these are the colours I used for my skin:

Base: Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ocher Pale, Alizarin Crimson, Ultra Marine Blue Deep (Old Holland).

Shadow: Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue Deep.

Lights: Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna

That's the head so far and tomorrow I'll be working on it some more plus a bit of the background if I really push myself.

New Self-Portrait Painting (In Progress)

I started this painting on the 17th, and this is how it looked yesterday. Now the real work begins. I need to straighten lines, get my skin tone going and a lot of other things...

4-Hour Portrait Sketch

This is a painting I had to get out of my system today. I made my brother sit for me, that wasn't easy. But here it is, it's about life-size, oil on canvas. I may tweak some things but I'm glad I finally did a portrait of a family member!

5 Hour Still-Life

I challenged myself last night with one of the most difficult objects I've ever painted. I bought it at Value Village, and I'm not sure what it was used for but it was a great find. I only gave myself 5 hours to paint it so I didn't get to every detail but I'm liking the results. The only thing is the background colour is too dark so I'll have to change it. Here it is so far:

Staved off the Dry Spell

Same cup only now it has a green friend. The plan was to go into a large scale still-life with this cup but I wasn't loving the set up I had for it. It was too small and I think I want a more well thought out and aesthetically pleasing composition. But I needed to paint something in the meantime and I haven't painted a lime before plus it's an opportunity to get the cup looking more accurate than before. It's looking pretty dark now but I like to leave my lights for last and this layer has to dry so I can glaze and scumble in those lights. So give it a couple days and there should be some highlights on the lime at least.

In other news, I'm going to buy my French box easel very soon, and weather permitting, I should be doing landscapes sometime next week and I can't wait!

6 Hour Pose, June 9th Day 2

Ugh, that face! I need to redo it somehow but otherwise I'm pretty happy with it. The gesture is great, and although the face is too small, it's ok. The skin tone could have been cooler but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I'm happy with the values and the overall feel of it. The model is really great, really friendly and she was helpful with giving me some feedback. The pose ended yesterday but the model kindly offered to allow me to take photos and that's really going to help me fix and complete somethings like the leg on the left and redoing the head.

You know what I keep thinking I've sort of got that "Lucian Freud palette" going on which I've never liked. When I was going to university, the few figure paintings that were displayed had that same palette of colours with that greyish background. Then I realized that a lot of that is due to the studio set up. They've got white walls and there's usually never any other background and so you end up with a lot of mid-tones. That's also due to the fact that there's never dramatic lighting.

For my first figure painting in about 3 years (yeah...) I'm proud of it and I'm going to take what I've learned and make the next one even better. But when this one is complete, it will be in my portfolio because it definitely has potential.

6 Hour Pose, June 9th Day 1

Day 1 went much better than I was anticipating. I expected to have to finish the colour and whatever else I wanted to do today but when I got there I found out the same pose is tomorrow. That was a relief because I was able to really take my time. Started out with the imprimatura last night, which was a gamble because I really didn't know what the colours would be but looks like it's working well.

I was measuring quite a bit so the drawing took longer than I wanted but it seems to have paid off. I used raw umber plus flake white for this stage and that worked well because flake white is nice and warm, also translucent so it looks very subtle. The hand was a nice suprise. I was putting it off but when I got around to it, it looked really good. The face turned out fine in the end, but I don't think I'll be getting into the eyes, just some colour maybe and highlights.

Provided everything dries tomorrow, I will be glazing in some colour and scumbling as well. I don't know how far I'll be able to take the colour but I would like to build up the paint more in certain areas. But right now it's got this quality I like about it, sort of a Flemish thing and I think I want to keep that as much as I can (keeping in mind that it is a sketch at the end of the day). That's it for now, and hopefully my painting hasn't been stolen from the studio...

Study of a Tea Cup, Oil on Canvas (Part 2)

Ahh yes, highlights! It's nearly done, just need to glaze that reflection down, get it a bit warmer. I have to say, that tea cup has been a joy to paint, I really love it as a subject. I'm still searching for supporting objects to paint with it and make a larger composition. Perhaps a peeled orange, which I've always wanted to do well. I could add the small tea plate in there...maybe a whole tea set. That might be a bit cliche though so I'll have to work out something more interesting. But I think I will play around with background objects a bit more to add depth and I think that will make things more interesting by giving the eye a lead-in to the painting. Hmmm...Anyway, the design on the cup was a lot less difficult than I thought it would be and it looks great. I'm happy with the sense of form I was able to get and I actually did end up glazing in some subtle colour! I was a bit apprehensive about the colour working out but I gave it a try and I love it. I haven't really glazed colour in years so this is encouraging. Looks like I'll be using a grisaille to start every still-life from now on. 

Study of a Tea Cup, Oil on Canvas (Part 1)

I was always eying this tea cup as a subject so I decided to do a study of it to see how I liked it. I'm letting it dry now, and tomorrow I will be adding more details. I did this one last night in a few hours and I'm starting to really like the grisaille technique again. I really like the imprimatura I used too, I'm probably going to use it for figure painting on Tuesday. Can't wait to add the highlights! I should say the inspiration to do a grisaille again came from the artist Dan Thompson  who has a demo on the American Artist site. He used a grey toned canvas and raw umber plus flake white for his block-in. It looked awesome so I thought I should give it a try and I'm so glad I did. He also mentioned the "calligraphy of the brush", which hit the nail on the head for me. Using the brush not just to fill things in but as a way to create interest in itself (if that makes any sense). So I'm trying to incorporate that into my unfinished pieces to add interest. Stay tuned!

First Painting of the Year

So I've finally gotten down to painting this year. I was sort of anxious about it but I did a quick still-life with roses and it's not too bad. I hated it at first but it's growing on me. Not sure why I thought I was all of a sudden going to be great at painting roses of all things, they're so difficult! Maybe because so many others make it look easy. I am rusty for sure but I'm proud of myself for not giving up on this one and just finishing it even though it's not my best. I think it's important just to finish things no matter what or you never really finish anything. I'll post a picture of it when it's varnished. 

Egg Study

I just did this in about an hour. It's my first painting on mylar. It wasn't bad--I definitely need more practice. I thought I'd start really simply by painting an egg in black and white just to feel things out. It's nice to be able to take a brush, dip it in mineral spirits and use it to clean up edges. I don't see myself doing full paintings on mylar, but I'll explore it some more.