New Year, New Resolve

Ingres is reported to have said that "drawing is the probity of art". My interpretation is that he meant that drawing is truth, and without it a work of art lacks a solid foundation. Whenever I start to feel as if I'm running in place, not advancing as far in my work as I would like, I know that I can go back to the source, drawing, and work my way from there. It's such a simple and basic process, yet profoundly engaging, and often frustrating. My academic training has gotten me away from the "contour line", one shot method, that was emphasized in high school and college, and more towards something fluid; like shaping clay for a sculpture. The nebulous quality of my initial straight line block-in pencil marks, gradually become more refined, and my analytical thought processes undergo a similar refinement. In this way each drawing becomes a new adventure, a self discovery that never seems rote or repetitive.
       With the advent of the new year I've decided to push myself a bit harder on the drawing front. I feel like I haven't fully made use of all that drawing has to offer in terms of advancing my art and so I'm determined to increase my focus. Normally I start a painting by making an actual size drawing, sometimes called a "cartoon", and then transferring it to my canvas. This is done on white sketchpad paper. I do spend quite a bit of time on the drawing, and I keep pushing it until I feel it's "canvas ready". I use a mirror often to check for mistakes, and I do a lot of measuring, and cross measuring. So, what else could I do, one might ask? Usually my painting concept is based on a small thumbnail sketch. I'm going to start making larger, slightly more refined sketches, maybe on toned paper, that include a value study as well. I want to use the drawing as a way of working out several possibilities in each arrangement that I set up, so as to arrive at the best solution. I also want to make individual studies of elements in the setup in order to better understand their individual specifics before encompassing them in the harmony of the overall design.

This is the "cartoon" for a painting that I'm currently about to start. At this point I've transferred it to a canvas, but I haven't started to paint it yet. If I were following my new years resolutions, I would not have made this drawing full size and transferred it without having first made some drawing studies and even some painted studies. It's not that I'm not happy with the drawing, I am, and I'm excited to paint it, it's really just a feeling I have that I need to push myself a little harder to not just come up with an idea but to come up with the best version of that idea. I did however make two miniature transfers on 5 x 7 inch panels on which I'll do a black and white and a color poster study. It's not completely what I resolved to do but it's not a total "cheat" on my "New Years Resolutions", so I'll take it and try to do more on the next one (isn't that what resolutions are all about?).

Finishing A Portrait

This shows all of the progress shots of "Phoebe" 9"x12", oil on panel, including the finished painting. It's always hard to know exactly when a portrait is finished. In the way that I work, wet in wet, re-touching areas becomes a very tricky business. The idea is to proceed slowly and carefully enough that very little touching up is necessary. What happens very often when you re-touch is that the new brushwork doesn't quite mate with the old, even if you oil out. I did do a little retouching on the face. I wasn't quite happy with the highlights around the cheek and the lower lip was too prominent. So in spite of my apprehension I went ahead and re-worked those areas. What usually happens when you add paint over an alla prima style painting is that you have to pretty much repaint all of the adjacent areas until the new areas seem to harmonize with the old. There's no way of telling how far that will take you, sometimes it can mean repainting the entire picture. Anyways, I'm very happy (for now) with this portrait done entirely from life. Phoebe and I got to talking about what a portrait might communicate about the model and she asked what did I see when I looked at the portrait? I said that overall the impression I get is of a young woman who is very earnest, serious about what's to come in life, but still very much a young woman caught up in the things that young woman are caught up in. Hopefully that comes across to others as well.

More "Phoebe"

I'm making good progress on the finishing pass for "Phoebe" oil on linen panel, 9"x12". I'm finding a lot more color in her skin tones now, so I'm breaking out the cad orange, and alizarin crimson. She's on vacation in Jamaica so hopefully she won't come back with too dark of a tan or I'll have to go by what's already painted.

Drawings

I've started the block-in for a new painting, "Lily Painting a Cast" 16"x20". The model got lost on the way to my studio so I was only able to get in two hours. At the start of the next session I'm going to triple check my measurements before I do any refining. Basically I have her posing as if she's painting flesh colors onto a cast of the "Dying Gaul". I'm thinking about having her turn her eyes up towards me as if someone just called to her, rather than looking down at the cast, as she is now. "Dome with Bottles" 11"x14" is slowly crawling along. I'm not in any rush.

Block-ins

"Julia" 11"x14", "Jug, Pan, and Vase" 9"x12". Okay so after my little diversions I decided to get back to basics. Julia was blocked in in about 2 and a half hours. I was hoping to have it transfer ready but I'm going to seek further refinement in another drawing session. It already looks quite a bit like her but as Sargent used to say " a portrait is a painting where there's a little something wrong with the mouth". The still life and portrait are both being done under natural light, which lately seems to be my favorite. I realize now that I can have my faster sketchier work and my slower work, but to combine them is to take the middle road which can never be good. It's best to just let the two modes compliment each other.

Portrait Studies

These are a couple of small (8"x10") portraits done in a single session, on a white, untoned, canvas board. My procedure is to draw directly on the canvas using raw umber thinned with oms. I'm drawing with a small synthetic bright made by Robert Simmons for acrylic paint. It makes very gestural, softish marks where I can do a light block-in. Once that's resolved I take a small synthetic round and re-draw my lines and terminator lines. I try to keep detail to a minimum at this point and concentrate on getting accurate shadow shapes. Than I wash in the shadow shapes with umber, add some secondary tones, and background. My next step is to identify the overall local flesh color of the model and thinly brush in the shadow tone and middle tone. Once I'm happy with that I begin to refine the larger planes working my way towards smaller forms without losing the big masses. I've been doing a lot of quick painting lately, demos and such, and it's really impacting my approach to painting.

Small Faces

Two quick three hour sketches and a study after Charles Bargue. All on 8"x10" canvas panels. I'm starting to enjoy the quick portrait sketches a little more although I still find the whole process somewhat torturous overall. It completely goes against the grain of my perfectionist methods which I'm guessing in the end will prove to be a good thing.

Chasing The Model

"Portrait Study" 9"x12" oil on linen on board, "Caesar's Last Bath" oil on linen on board 16"x20", "Pancho" 16"x20" oil on linen. Not doing a great job with the photographing but I thought I'd blog these anyway. I will rephoto after varnishing and post better shots. The portrait study was made at my saturday mornings group session. The model came in having had only one hour's sleep (not her fault). The session was for three hours. She started with her head inclined and her eyes open, but her eyes kept closing and her head was flopping around like one of those bobble heads. I kept hearing my former instructors voice like Obi Wan telling me to use my experience to paint the portrait rather than relying on observation alone, so I gave it my best shot and rushed to nail down what I could in 3 hours. Than my friend Carlos tells me afterwards that he's going to have the model back for another 4 hour session. I wanted to shoot myself in the foot. So in this session I worked on getting the hair in, correcting the drawing and smoothing some of the transitions. The model seemed better rested but she still could not hold the pose. I guess if I ever decide to paint someones portrait on the subway I'm going to be well prepared.

"Erica" Completed

"Erica with Turban" 9"x12" oil on linen. That's a wrap on this one. I followed pretty much the method of my training and I went straight through from start to finish without any reworking. I worked really hard to make sure each little area was exactly how I wanted it while the paint was still wet. Erica probably wishes I had made her a little more "glam" or feminine, but that wasn't really what I had in mind. I've probably been looking at too many "bashi-bazouks". I'm going to line up a new model and jump back in while my feet are still wet. The study was done on a 8"x10" canvas panel. I usually work smaller but that's the size that my printer spit out and I went with it. I've got to get this one nailed down before the light changes. This time of year it changes very fast.

Self Portrait Round 3

This is my latest battle with my small self portrait. I'm going to put this one aside and start another one soon. I'm happy overall with the results. I picked up a few things working in layers this way that I'm going to play around with for a while. It's a little on the brushy side (less so than it looks in this photo), so in the next one I'm goin to use the same process but attempt to be more economical with my strokes; do more with less.

"Still Life with Portrait" etc;

"Still Life with Portrait" 16"x20" oil on linen, is almost done. It's got that haze before oiling out for final touch-ups. I'm still not completely satisfied with the portrait placed the way it is. Last night I dreamed that I painted a frame around the portrait, so I think I'll give it a try. The grisaille is from my Tuesday night figure drawing group. We're doing one pose for the summer, about 8 weeks total. This is on a 16"x20" linen on gatorfoam. I wasn't completely happy with my drawing but the model was moving like crazy, so I locked him in, rather than chase the pose, and relied on my previous knowledge to finish the underpainting. I'll research the anatomy and make adjustments where needed. The self portrait is on an 8"x10" linen board. I'm following Speed's procedure of stating the basic planar divisions in the first pass, just trying to get that to feel right with very little detail. Yesterday, I went in and repainted it ading a bit more detail, but I may have lost the drawing, so I'll have to work that out before going in again. It's a challenging way of working and I'm really loving the whole process.

More Ericka

Here's the poster and ebauche for "Ericka as The Wine Seller" 16"x20". The poster photo came out a little glossy because the paint was still wet, but I guess it gives the general idea of what I try to go for in the study. Mainly I want to be able to quickly think of the color scheme as a whole entity and the 5"x7" size allows me to make rapid decisions. I find that this kind of color "gesture" for want of a better term, if done correctly, will carry over into the final piece. On the ebauche (thinned down color layer), I'm painting it in fairly broadly, I don't want to eat the icing before theres a cake. I've been thinking a lot lately about the approach used by the angel academy and I like the idea of a first painting where there's less pressure to nail down all of the detail. I prefer to keep the first layer kind of soupy however because when I start to paint the finishing pass I like some tooth and I like some of the pale underpainting to glow through the top layer.

New Model

This is the beginning of a block-in for a portrait that I'm finally doing in my own studio. I'm about three hours in at this point. I've got everything setup exactly how I wanted it so I'm a happy camper. I have the B&H lighting setup that was recommended to me by Doug Flynt suspended on a hook about twenty feet in the air at the peek of my converted garage studio. I have it back far enough that there's enough light on my easel and that it's the same light that's on the model. That helps a lot with matching the color notes and values. I have my 24 year old daughter working to the right of me on her own drawing, which is looking pretty good (damn her!). Ever since I decided to hire this model my brain has been flooded with these Gerome like images. I made dozens of imaginary sketches but nothing was really clicking. Then I picked up this four foot wine bottle at an auction and something clicked. I made a turban for the model, set up my home made model stand, and we were off and running. I'm going to take my time to get the drawing as close to perfect as I can. I've been trying Scott Waddells technique of knocking back the drawing with an eraser to get a semi fresh start and it's been working pretty good. The only bad thing is I'm going to blow a fuse having to wait until next saturday to get back into it.

Vickie Completed

This is the final appearance of the portrait that I've been working on at GCA with two of my friends Carlos and Bob. I'm pretty happy with it, I feel that I've extended my learning curve on this one. I would have liked a bit more time on the jacket and the underlying forms but oh well, game over. After watching Scott Waddells portrait painting video I'm anxious to do another one and wouldn't you know it I've hired a model to pose for me at my home studio on Saturday. I can't wait, I've already got a concept in mind and i built a modeling stand and ordered another lighting setup from B&H photo. On this one I'm really going to be slow rolling those forms because there's no deadline! Yay!

More Vickie

I'm pretty much done with the portrait on this one, except for a few touchups here and there. It's a little sunken in at this point. I oil out lightly before each session but by the time I take the photo the next day it's sunken back in. It'll all pop back nicely when I spray it with re-touch varnish. Some artists like to use retouch varnish to oil out. I tried it I didn't like it. It's too slick. I use refined linseed oil cut in half with oms. I brush it on and then lightly pat most of it away with a Viva towel. I'm glad I made the portrait life size on this one, it's allowing me to really dig in on the subtlety of the forms. My studio mates Carlos and Bob are into old hats, hence the 1920's looking specimen on top of the models head. I'm not even sure what to call it; is it a hat, a semi hat, an oversized barrett, I don't know but it does make a nice dark accent against the head.

Morgan Complete

I ended up painting right through to the last minute of the last session. whew! Nine sessions, three hour segments, once a week, and because I worked with a group of artists it only ended up costing me about fifteen dollars a session. I would love to keep this going and just continue to do eight week sessions but the artists that I work with are not classical realists and they found it difficult to keep their interest over the long period of time. I worked on a 9"x12" inch canvas because 27 hours is barely enough time to do a detailed figure painting. 50 hours would be more to my liking. I'll be taking figure or portrait painting at GCA this fall so that will keep the ball rolling. One of the artists in my group was asking me if I found it difficult to transition from still life painting to figure painting. She's a landscape painter and she was having a lot of trouble switching gears. I told her that what I do is try to keep the process as uniform as possible so that whatever small gains I get from a painting can be repeated and built on in the next one. If you re=invent the wheel for each new painting it's hard to chart your progress. For instance on this one my progress was mostly in the area of conceptualizing the light and getting the right chroma for the skin tones. The models skin tones were a lot less chromatic then I envisioned them in my first pass. I had the spotlight almost directly over her head and slightly behind her. Once I started to ask myself what that light should look like on each part of the form I was able to get the overall light structure to look more unified. My problem area was and is painting the shadow side of the face. I din't want to just leave it an undistiguishable mass without in some way indicating the position of the eye. A lot of squinting and re-painting and I'm still not satisfied. This will be my starting point for the next one. Get this right before moving on.

"Maud" completed

I did a little bit of touching up on the outline of the cheek and the nose and that's about it. I could see that I had added a few pounds to her face, she was looking a little puffy. Other than that I painted it pretty directly, in one go, over the wipeout. I'm not sure if that's how Eakins would have painted it. I was planning on going to see the actual painting at Yale last week but it was a 95 degree day and I didn't want to deal with traffic during a heat wave. I may go next weekend.
"Maud after Eakins" oil on linen on board, 8"x10"

Morgan Crawl

"Well we gotta new dance and it goes like this,

bop-shoo-bop it's the portrait painting twist".

I'm slowly crawling my way up Morgan's face. In the last three hour session I started at the bottom of the chin because I wanted to slowly roll up to the strong light on the cheek bones. I'm putting a little bit of color touches here and there, but even though I'm using a flesh palette I'm trying to keep it fairly mono chromatic. I'm avoiding, at least at this stage, chromatic changes in the flesh color because I'm concentrating on rendering the light on the subtle forms. It's a real challenge to not have the face look too sculptural or mask like. Once the basic planar structure is noted I have to look for the subtle weaving of related forms, "pathways of light" as Tony Ryder would say. The other problem is the primitive nature of the lighting setup. Because we're working in a space that also doubles as a gallery, there are rows of flourescent lights that can't be turned off. I had to light the model with a 150 watt outdoor spotlight just to cut through the ambient light. That being said, I'm pretty much conceptualizing the forms as per my cast painting training so I'm not strictly painting the light as it is. The next one I'm going to arrange in my studio with one or two other artists and definitely have much better lighting.

"Morgan" Open Grisaille and Drawing

Here's a new painting ("Morgan" 9"x12") that I started from a three hour drawing that I made at my Tues. night drawing group. I have eight more three hour sessions left on this. My plan is to make a poster study next, do a loose ebauche and then window shade my way down the painting. I'm enjoying this whole process more than words can express.

Self Portrait Final

That's a wrap on this one. I took advantage of the snow day (Yeah!!) to finish up. I worked mainly along the terminator to try and get the roll up to the light to be a little less hard. I worked on the background a bit as well. I don't know if I'm fully satisfied (when am I ever?), but I'm ready to move on. This portrait has been taking over my studio for a few weeks as I was reluctant to move the easel or the mirror (set up on another easel) for fear of losing the light pattern. I've got a couple of still life paintings in mind based on the five senses and I'm anxious to get cracking.