Vertigo

A friend of mine asked me to do a couple of paintings for her, the first of which being based on, inspired if you will, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. For those of you that have seen that movie (and really, how many people that are left haven't?), this isn't supposed to be a movie poster for the film. I was trying to create an image that was more towards the sense of vertigo, I suppose. So that would be why the figure doesn't look a thing like Mr. Stewart. I just wanted to get that out of the way before someone poked at me and gave me a hard time about it.

I threw just about everything I had at this painting. It took me a considerable amount of time to come up with a sketch that I liked enough to move forward with. Then I spent a few days snapping reference until I got enough that I felt would be acceptable. Next up I sat down and chiseled out a value study to work out some of the preliminary hitches. As of late I've been scanning my sketches or other preliminary drawings and using Photoshop to scrape together a value study. I'm really beginning to enjoy this stage of the process. If my picture doesn't work in black and white, it won't work in color, so I have to make sure at this stage of the game that I have everything I need for balance, composition, and what have you. If anything with scale needs to be worked out from my original drawing it's a simple matter of stretching or squashing and then working on top of it in a different layer if I need to.

It was about this time that I became obsessed with finding solid color schemes, so I sat down and painted up a little 5 x 7 color study. I could have done this part on the computer as well, quite easily as a matter of fact, but I wanted to limit the tubes of paint that I had out for use . So I found the main three tubes I wanted to use and hashed out my little color comp. Once I thought I had everything I needed, I enlarged my value study and transferred it to the canvas. All that remained to do was paint it.

Admittedly I got through most of the painting with no real problems. But eventually I ran into a snag. I realized I wanted a somewhat dramatically lit face for my figure, but the drawing I had originally done with my value study just wasn't cutting it. As near as I could tell I had two options;

1. Try to light my own mug again and set up the lights to get the results I wanted.
2. Find some willing model so I could do the same.

Unfortunately neither option was particularly attractive at 3 in the morning. All of a sudden I realized I needed (and/or desperately wanted) a planes of the head model . In lieu of shelling out $98 though, I realized I have Poser 6 installed and could get the next best thing. So I fired it up and got the reference I needed. Then I redrew the face and viola! Things came into place. I did the same for the hand. Using Poser as a tool to work through difficult and tricky lighting only, and not as a model for form.

I think it all came together for something pretty neat. I'll be delivering the painting to my friend this weekend, I hope she likes it.

Oil on canvas. 24 x 30.

Killing time. And art.

Last night I was waiting for a failing experiment to fail (erm... I mean dry) so I sat down in front of my computer. Lucky for me I found a pack of 5 x 8 index cards in the studio while I was cleaning the night before. I picked up my trusty old Pentel brush pen and started making a mess. Before too long I added a few white highlights and called it quits. I've got a huge stack of these cards, so I may have to play with this some more.

Ink on paper. 30 minutes

Overpainting.

Painted over my underpainting from the other night. One thing I can say for certain is the painting went a lot faster with the aid of an underpainting. However I feel it's almost overworked. I over-painted. (Rim shot.) There was a freshness in the underpainting that I think has disappeared in the final. Next time I'll slow down some and start with thinner glazes to preserve my preliminary work.

Oh well. What's done is done, and it's time to move on to the next one.

Oil on canvas board. About an hour.

Graci

I had read that Norman Rockwell often did under paintings in mars violet, so I picked me up a tube of the stuff and thought I'd try it out. Used the wipe out method for the highlights. I'm trying to introduce more randomness and texture to my work. So far I'm liking the feel.

Oil on canvas board. 2 hours.

The last two projects I tackled with Painter were kind of cutesy - and there's nothing wrong with that - but I thought I'd try something a little more realistic this time around. I was still playing with the mixing palette function, but this time I restricted myself to the two colors (Painter's approximation of yellow ochre and alizarin's crimson) plus black and white. I have mixed feelings about it overall.

I know that only a poor craftsman blames his tools, but up until recently I was running two monitors on my computer. It was nice. I could have Photoshop or Painter open on the right and have whatever reference I was using on the left. True, I could have both open on the same monitor, but then the two things I want to look at are fighting for priority on the already limited real estate. I've been spoiled by dual monitors for about 8 years now. I just can't make the transition back in a manner of weeks. Sigh.

So, my problem with this was constantly having to switch back and forth. It's so inconvenient. It would be like having to turn around to look at a model then back again to look at your drawing. I feel it's a bit more on the choppy side because of the disconnect in my chain of information. Outside of that I think the colors are kind of drab, but at least they all work well together - though I would hope so since they're all related thanks to the limiting of the palette. I think it could stand to be a little more towards the high-key range of things, but I'll live. I love the hands though. I was worried they'd lose some of their charm when I tried to "paint" them, but I think I pulled it off well. And I think they're my favorite part of the image. Also I'm realy liking the pastel tools I've been playing with. I've always wanted to play with pastels (since it's more akin to drawing with a painting flair) but I've never been able to bring myself to actually sit down with some and try.

Anywho. It is what it is and for what it is I'd say it's done. Next time I think something with a little bit more color is in order.

Painter XI. 2 hours.

Experiment No. 2593

A friend of mine did a doodle of a kid in a bath and sent it to me. There was something wonderfully naive about it that inspired me to branch out a little. I did this sketch in my faithful moleskine and kind of went about my business. Though, after I did Run, Fat Girl, Run (for which this picture served as a stylistic inspiration) I figured I would scan it and continue my exploration of Painter.

This time I set out to play more with the color mixing feature. I've been experimenting with a limited palette of yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, mars black, and white (more on that next time) and I wanted to know if Painter was smart enough to effectively mimic the results. Not quite, as it turns out. For the colors used in the rendering of the flesh things were pretty consistent, but the weird green I've been getting from yellow ochre and mars black was no where to be seen. All things considered I'm pleased with it's versatility. I had to give in when it came to the tub and the water though. There's just no way to get a blue from yellow, red, black, and white. Obviously.

Other than that, I think I lost some of the whimsical character from the sketch after scanning it into Painter. Originally she looked more like a kid in a bath, which was the point, but now that I'm talking about it that seems weird. But I digress, I think it's pretty solid. Things are coming along fairly well I think. I'm definitely willing to explore this direction for a while. Until next time! Thanks for looking.

Doodle Doodle Doodle...

I made you out of pixels. Ok, so my talents don't lie in parodying holiday songs. I'm sorry.

Loose 20 minute warm up and experiment rolled into one. I've noticed normally when I work in photoshop I keep the transparency set at about 80% or so. I may get crazy and drop it down to about 40% for an electronic "glaze". (But only if I really want to live life on the edge.) This time around, after I had most of the shapes where I wanted them I started playing around with a really low opacity. I hoped to soften edges and drop in some tone where things should be shifted towards light or dark.

Photoshop CS3. 20 minutes.

Pip Pip?

It's a new year.

Well... it has been for about three weeks now. Obviously I'm a little behind the times. But this dashing chap is always in style. Stylishly late, if you will. (And I hope you will!)

At any rate, I hope everyone's new year is treating them well so far. Cheers!

P.S.
Should he have a monocle? I kind of feel like he should have a monocle.

Photoshop CS3. 30 minutes.

Bad Painting

When trying to help someone learn something I've found it's helpful to have good examples of bad examples. That's why I did this painting. There was one issue I wanted to tackle in particular, but got a second one as a bonus. Oh frabjous day!

I think I'll start with the bonus issue that sprang up. When I was in school a professor or two warned against drawing with lead pencil for underdrawings for paintings. Generally speaking they felt it was best to either block in your drawing with paint (diluted, of course) and a brush or use something like a colored pencil or pastel. The logic being you could bias the underdrawing towards warm or cool depending on your intention with the final painting. Also, whatever you put down as a drawing had that pesky tendency to mix with the paint you put on top. So, if you use a lead pencil for a drawing, well, then you're going to grey down all of the colors you put over it. And that's exactly what happened here. The painting just feels dead, for want of a better word. At least as far as the colors are concerned. Thankfully, there are ways around this.

Primarily I do my underdrawing in pencil (or graphite transfer, which amounts to the same thing) then I spray fix the drawing - and I spray fix to keep the drawing from running away when I apply a color wash later. When the drawing stops smudging I apply a coat of acrylic paint to tone the canvas and bias it towards warm or cool. I use workable fixatif for the spraying stage in the interest of speed. I've found that the acrylic wash tends to bead up and not stick to the surface if I use crystal clear for the sealing stage. I could use an oil wash on top of crystal clear, but I don't want to wait for it to dry. The acrylic wash also serves as a final sealant on the surface. If I have a false start in the painting stage I can scrub everything back down to the drawing and acrylic wash without much in the way of trouble and start over.

Now, to take a step backwards, before you seal a drawing and start painting, you've gotta do the drawing. The important thing here is to make sure you get the drawing right. I cannot stress this enough. If you aren't happy with the preliminary lay-in, don't start painting. No matter how well you render your subject over a bad drawing, it will still look wrong. I remember listening to people say they'll "just fix it when [they] go to paint", but it seemed to be more effort than it was worth. Why create extra hurdles for yourself to jump over when you're painting? As one of my professors would say, "if the frame of your house isn't stable, why would you start furnishing your bedroom?" Or something like that.

So I did a bad drawing. The anatomy is so very wrong and the composition is crap. I feel the rendering is fair (could be better, of course) but it just looks wrong. Nothing short of shifting the entire painting to one side or starting over entirely would have been able to save this. And that's the point. If it isn't right, start over. Another one of my professors used to tell us all the time, "You've got to slow down in order to go fast." I find as long as everything is in place before I sit down at the easel I can get through a painting much more quickly. Which is preferable over trying to fix everything that's wrong from the start as I go along.

That's a very long-winded way to state two simple guidlines:
1. Make sure the drawing is solid.
2. Seal the drawing so you don't contaminate your paints.

Happy painting!

Digital Desires

What else would I do at 4 am other than fire up Photoshop and make an image? Yeah, I don't know either. I mean, who sleeps at 4 am?

So, I'm continuing down my path of creating work that's completely digital. I still have some misgivings about it, and I still really enjoy the tactile quality of painting at the easel, but this digital thing is starting to make a lot of sense. It does help that the benefits are a many and they whisper in my ear while I sleep. Thus far I've limited myself to only black and white, and I've been pleased with the results so far. This image is still a little jumpy in certain areas, but on the whole I think it's coming together. At least a huge step in the right direction.

There will probably be a lot more of these on the way. I'm doing them just to be doing them. I don't know what direction I want to take them, but it's all helping. It's all building towards something. (Other than french fries.)

So here it is.

Approx. 3 hours. Photoshop CS3.