Blog Archives

That's all

9/30/2009

Annette Hanshaw used to end some of her songs with "that's all". I intended to end a period of painting with a journey into carving, molding, and casting some precast. But fate stepped in and interrupted my far too comfortable eleven dimensional reality and thrust me suddenly into unexpected thirteen dimensional ...uh, sort of reality. Now I have some helical geometry to figure out. You only call me when you can't think of anyone else you want to talk to who won't just laugh, Tony.

The mason built four walls in a patio, and I was called in to look at it. Field measurements determined it's a helix or a portion thereof. Four of them. Two rights and two lefts. But all four different. The geometry is interesting but actually something I just want to think about rather than do anything about.

I've found it's hard to convey this kind of geometry through verbal discussions and especially over the phone. It would be preferable to be able to conjure holograms at will. But here's another two dimensional representation of a three dimensional phenomenon known as a helix you'll likely have no problem not understanding not due to any lack in your intelligence but only in my perspective rendering abilities. Here's the thing about this helix and all others: It is level at all radial lines and twists like a screw. And a special note for precasters that need to form this kind of stuff: Don't forget that a helix is not described by plane geometry so don't built your forms as if it were. The twist is in.

Or just paint something. I find that a lot easier.

2 Comments

Another One...Just like the other one.

9/25/2009

0 Comments

This is quite similar to the previous painting, Mountain Scene, because I know when my daughter sees the other she's going to want it (she better) but she can't have it as it is destined to live its life for the foreseeable future in hallowed halls which shall remain nameless except for the initials JHU.
So she gets this.

0 Comments

Mountain Scene and Three Part Base Coat Again

9/25/2009

0 Comments

I love some of the photos my wife took in California on my son, Silvio's land. I like the dry grass and the golden tones contrasting so readily with the trees steeped in shadow due to the sun's ever presence during the six month dry season.

Once again I find the scene clearly divided into three obvious areas: the sky, the somewhat distant mountain (it is about one to one and a half miles away) and the foreground which I'm now only indicating as grass, though there will eventually be more. The base coats here are composed of combinations of colors and not homogeneously over mixed, but mixed a bit on the painting surface. The mountain is orange and Cerulean Blue and Chrome Oxide Green. Two separate batches were mixed, one leaning toward the warm, and the other with the same colors but heavier toward the green. There is a warm and a cool version of similar colors because distance imparts a certain degree of homogeneity to all colors, i.e., they are neutralized. Foreground was a blending of Burnt Siena, Yellow Ochre, and some miscellaneous greens and violets. This seems to be more complex than a white or black surface from which to start, but I still consider this a base coat. This is ten minutes work in acrylic.

This is at four hours and at the end of the acrylic phase. I've introduced trees on the mountain and tree and vegetation in the foreground and the tree's shadow in the grass. The trees on the mountain were done first in a blue-violet, and then the sunlit areas on those trees in a neutralized green, slightly shifted to the blue for distance. That could be done with a Veridian and orange (or Cadmium Red Light) and Cerulean Blue.

0 Comments

One Last (?) Redwood Cries Out

9/25/2009

0 Comments

to me and I feel like lashing myself to the mast. We actually have a mast for these crises. Ok, we don't.

This shot of half of a base coat gives it away that I am working on a wood panel. In this case the base coat didn't have to cover everything. The main reason for that is that there will be leaves and branches where the bare area is and beyond into the sky. I don't want to detail anything yet, and the sky needs to show through almost throughout, so it needs to dry. Indian Red and black for the tree trunks; the usual Cerulean Blue and white for sky.

The discipline in executing this painting involved the awareness that one is seeing through the branches to other leaves and branches beyond, and that most of the most distant views are of the sunlit tops. Therefore, working from most distant to closest, the first layers are light and the closer and often more dark branches and leaves are painted over the more distant ones.

Here we are at 5 hours and at the end of the acrylic phase. After this we go to oils because of the nuanced blending abilities it has over acrylics.

My last Redwood. For now.

0 Comments

Mountain Scenes

9/25/2009

1 Comment

In the next two illustrations, I'm working from photos recently taken on my son's land. The base coat here is divided into the four basic parts and colors that are evident: the sky, the grass in sunlight, the grass in shadow, and trees in the distance. cerulean Blue and white for sky; burnt and raw siena for the grass in sunlight, the same plus violets for grass in shadow, and black and Veridian for trees.

The completed painting.

1 Comment

To Clarify: First Background Not Always Black

9/25/2009

0 Comments

Someone asked me just yesterday, after having read some entries here, whether I always started off with a black background. I answered him short of a full explanation (it was late) by saying, "No". Of the last four Redwood paintings, three did, and one started with white. In this entry and the next few, I'm going to show three examples where I didn't start with black and explain why. The first of these examples is that fourth Redwood.

In this case I began with white latex acrylic and defined the tree trunks in black acrylic. It was easier in this way because of the geometry of the tree trunks perspective.

0 Comments

By any other name

9/21/2009

0 Comments

This a a single pinkish rose and furnishes the material for another study that shows a variation of a typical approach, and one that is slightly simplified. Again, a small study at 6" x 8". I started with a typical black background and worked the rose carefully but quickly, this time with only two acrylic colors (besides white and the black background): Cerulean Blue and Alizarin Crimson. Image at left is at two hours, when I switched to oils. The acrylic goes as far as is efficient for me to take it in this medium, as any further work would not appreciably reduce its sketchy appearance.

This is after another couple hours in oils where again I max out what I can do in the realm of wet paint. The background was sketched in in oils because it depends on a wet on wet technique. For example, the green is created by cadmium yellow light into wet black and Venetian Red. It could end here. But I want to see if allowing the oils to dry and continuing will make much of a difference or will be worth the effort, since I know it would lose some of its spontaneity and the style will be changed. Here it is at stage two. Stage three can't happen for a few days yet.

0 Comments

quick study

9/21/2009

2 Comments

Sometimes I wonder why I've been working so small. Certainly it would have been wiser to specialize in miniatures when I was much younger, and had better vision and, especially, steadier hands. But this is not strictly a miniature, though small enough to cause me grief at times, at 6" x 8".

2 Comments

On the Eel River

9/21/2009

0 Comments

Some of you may know we recently took a trip to visit my son and granddaughter Luna out in no man's land, CA. Without elaborate explanations, this is a study of them playing in the Eel River. Painting 8" x 10".

0 Comments

Speed Painting.

9/15/2009

0 Comments

Since it takes me fifteen to thirty plus hours to complete some paintings, I figured who would be better to choose to lecture on how to get through it quick. Say you have a database that crunches the numbers and now because of having chosen to attempt to give the ultimate visual representation of light filled reality to my spouse because I love her so very much, my average time for a painting has gone up to ... incredible heights. Then it's time for speed painting to bring the average back down to survivable levels.

I'll call this one Redwoods, again another in this theme series,. This one was again begun on an acrylic (near) black background. This is after three hours of acrylic.

Just a little more with oils. The finished piece at left doesn't look substantially different, except for the tree trunks, though I suspect the main reason for that is that the initial acrylic developed quickly early on, probably due to a favorable distribution of light and dark.

0 Comments

<<Previous

Archives

Categories