Studio Time

Yesterday was a matter of filling in the blanks, adding some color, rebuilding and modeling the forms and so on.

Colors are Winsor Newton’s viridian blended with Rembrandt’s cadmium yellow, The blues are Winsor Newton’s French ultramarine with varying percentages of titanium white. The shadows are just ultramarine scrubbed over the greys as well as in to a few other places. I’ll be blending more greys back into that, as well as shadowing with a bit of violet. I want to see what sort of paint effects I can come up with on the “wall” areas.

The reds are, um… “reinforced” with Winsor Newton’s cadmium red deep blended to Rembrandt’s cadmium red light.

Frankly, I’m thinking the greens are a bit harsh and the whole thing sort of reminds me of Christmas. I’ll be toning things down and adding some paint effects throughout. I’m thinking along the lines of a summer scene… moderately bright, saturated colors… clear, sunny skies, all that.

I actually managed a fairly decent amount of time with this yesterday. Most of that time was spent shaping things with burnt sienna and a mix of raw sienna and titanium white. I followed that with Tuscan earth midtones and some Naples yellow highlights… changed the hair on the mother from the “mother and child” grouping and reworked her legs a little bit. The guy at the top center is supposed to be eating an orange. Eventually, the orange will be orange and the mouth should be a little more “mouth-like”.

There are a few small changes yet to be made. Today, I’ll break out the greens and blues and try to get a little interplay going between the colors… maybe put in a few shadows. There’s not a lot to say about it that isn’t better said by the image.

Yesterday’s was a short session due to Father’s Day festivities. I did manage to pretty much resolve the structure of this thing. Aside from a few small changes, it’s basically ready to paint. 🙂 …Shadowing, rendering, color and so on. This is the pleasant part where I can just basically get lost in things, listen to Americana or Jazz and fiddle with colors and forms.

Colors in yesterday’s session are: Sennelier’s raw umber, carbon black and titanium white for the greys and Naples yellow for some of the modeling. The oranges are Winsor Newton’s cadmium scarlet and Rembrandt’s cadmium orange.

Oh, I still had the lights and camera set up from yesterday. A couple of shots and a few twists on the polarizing filter were enough to get this image. It’s still sort of weird shooting in near dark.

This is the point at which things get a little frustrating. I made some changes to the overall structure of things yesterday. There will probably be a bit more of that. If this were any other time, or any other painting I’d probably just lose the linear stuff and just go with organic forms. That doesn’t really work with the way this was conceptualized though.

I think I’ve come to terms with the architectural stuff. I’m going to simplify a few areas, add some shadowing and go for a sort of trompe l’oeil look…. Sort of dangle things in front of a grey, concrete wall. In addition to the structural lines, it should give me what I’m looking for.

It’s probably a little unprofessional of me to apologize for the image quality… so, I’m going to do it anyway. This is image number 53. It’s taken with the lights reflecting off of the opposite wall, the window shades drawn and the polarizing filter on the camera cranked up all the way. It’s wet… It’s really difficult to make the glare go away and I need coffee yet. 🙂

Colors are Sennelier’s Tuscan earth, titanium white and Naples yellow. Naples yellow, and specifically Sennelier’s product, may just be the most essential color in my paint box. I typically use it instead of white. It’s wonderfully dense and opaque and makes rendering and highlighting much, much easier.

I used Grumbacher’s Mars black for the greys and the outlining. I usually use lampblack or carbon black but, I have a few old tube “ends” that I need to clear out of the paint box.

I spent the last week or so dragging a large Vizsla (mix) and a larger American pit bull (mix) up and down the rivers of the Ozarks in a canoe. It was pleasant if exhausting. The Ozarks are a beautiful area. I did not get any painting done.

This fourth session… done since I’ve been back, looks like the above picture. I know it’s not really all that pretty… hopefully, that will get resolved. I’m still working out colors and forms and trying to define this as the “city”. I think I’ve got some of the hustle and bustle and the general feeling of a crowded city street down, as well as some distinct characters to define a bit more fully: the Corinthian, Hippie octopus, Lovers, Mother and Child, The Boxer, Rioters, the Toe sucker, etc. The structure of the buildings is going to require a bit more work.

Colors this time include:

Sennelier’s Rive Gauche copper for its metallic properties and color. By themselves, metallic colors can look a little hokey. Under a few glazes, in abstract passages or as highlights on forms they can be really useful. Rive Gauche is Sennelier’s fast drying line of oils. That can be really useful as well.

Winsor Newton’s Terra Rosa and cobalt turquoise. Terra Rosa is an essential part of my palette… cobalt turquoise was something I picked up on a whim. It is sort of interesting but it’s definitely a color that spends more time on the shelf than it does on the palette. One tube has lasted me 30 or so years.

Sennelier’s Modigliani ochre, Hooker’s green and Indian yellow. Indian yellow, being extremely transparent, can sort of instantly and easily colorize any form. Modigliani ochre is a nice base for fleshtones and it recalls its namesake. I see it as sort of essential.

The medium is linseed oil and cobalt drier again.

This is session 3 of painting. Last night, I worked at the forms a little more with titanium white and hookers green acrylic. Today, I started with oils: Sennelier’s warm grey, sap green, sepia, burnt sienna and some stuff that was left over on the palette. I’m a little frustrated with it yet. I’ve lost some of the chaotic feel that I liked about the drawing and it’s a lot more cheery than I was going for. 🙂 I suppose that needs to be fixed in the next version.

The medium here is straight linseed oil with some cobalt drier. I left the acrylic stuff unsanded. I like the texture. Linseed oil flows a lot easier than mediums like liquin and so on that sort of surface. 🙂 It does not make for easily photographed oil paintings.

I decided I needed to work a bit larger for a while and this thing has been hanging around for way too long, so… I spent some time on it a couple of days ago. This is what things look like after the first session. I shaded things in with Sennelier’s (green) sepia, then went back and scrubbed in the highlights with titanium white and topped it all of with a sap green glaze here and there. It’s acrylic on very wet raw canvas. I spent as much time with a spray bottle as I did a brush. Keeping things wet blurs the paint into the canvas and makes for some really dense colors. It’s a little easier to see where this is going than in the sketch.

This spent the day yesterday getting sealed with a couple of coats of clear acrylic medium and drying while I worked on other stuff. Today, I’ll start figuring out the color a little better. 🙂 I can see a few changes that need to be made as well.