Beginning of a Portrait

This is a portrait commission I've just started. It is going to be about 18 x 24" and is done with Polychromos on Fisher 400 paper. 

Italian Decadence

Italian Decadence 6" x 18"   Coloursofts & Prismacolors on Pastelbord

You might notice I chose a different reference from the one in the video in the last post. I wanted it to look more decadent so I decided on this set up  where the satin fabric played  a larger role. There are a lot of objects in this piece, but I think it works because of the way like colors/values are grouped together. Please click on the photo to view it larger. 

People often ask how long my drawings take to do, so for this one I tried to figure that out.

Thursday: 4  hours setting up still-life, Photoshopping and drawing line drawing on board.

Friday day: 5 hours drawing (with breaks)

Friday night: 4 hours

Saturday day & night: 8 hours

That adds up to 21 hours for this little piece. Although I have to admit that the cow still-life, which is the same size, took me about 14 hours. The Italian one has more objects that are also more detailed so it took a lot more time. 

Bonus Day... otherwise known as Snow Day!

I know, I only work two days a week so a snow day isn't that big of a deal, but I did sneak in a little work. My husband and kids had a snow day too so it is pretty energetic around the house. I usually spend snow days out in the snow shoveling, snow blowing, sledding etc, but with my injured knee the family had to do that without me, leaving my tasks to filling the crock pot (with butternut squash soup) and readying the hot chocolate.

I also had some bonus time for my drawing. Before you say there isn't much more finished, keep in mind the size of this puppy (and please try to not notice the falling duct tape on the side of my paper). I started the girl in the back's pants and had to go back in and deepen the shadows on the shirt to work with the pants.

This had me thinking about the debate between people who work their picture's "as a whole" and people who work piece by piece like me until they are finished. The thing is... I think we are both really doing the same thing. If you work on all parts as a whole you put in basic color shades in large shapes around the paper then go back in and refine until you get to details. I would imagine as an artist put down those large shapes of color in the first step they may have to adjust a shape/color somewhere else on the page to work together (or maybe that is done in the refining steps).

When you work piece by piece its not that you work each part to conclusion and move to the next... you are always refining the parts you  put down to work with the rest. Just like in this instance where I put in the pants leg and had to deepen the shadows in the shirt.

I just trudged out into the snow to get the mail and found out that I did not get into the Thorne Sagendorph show this year. This is a regional biennial show that is a big deal in my area. At the last one my piece Zen won Best of Show and People's Choice. I was nervous this time about my piece getting in... I entered the ballerina from my Norman Rockwell series. I'm not sure how I feel about that... it does make me question this series... is it not "artistic" enough? Is there a place for humor in the gallery world? Maybe I need to use polychromos like in my Zen piece because it comes out more painterly and less illustration-like? Not sure.....

Update and pumpkins

Here is an update on the portrait commission. I think I owe it an explanation. The client had his and his wife's school photos from 2nd grade.. and asked if I cold draw him pushing her on a swing or something. It wasn't really possible with the little frontal view school portraits so I said no... but I could make a tromp l'oiel with the school photos on a desk with some kid stuff along with them. I asked him what he and his wife were into as kids and incorporated them on the table. I kept the 70's feel of the faded photographs and added a harvest gold tabletop.

The result: one wacky looking non-traditional portrait! I love it... but I have a very warped sense of humour. My favorite part is where the lines above the bee logo match up with the kick lines from snoopy. :-) Oh and the glue heart... who wouldn't like that?

There's loads to do still... and right before I left the studio today I messed up her poor little chin! It will be fixed tomorrow.

I have so much less time lately that while I was waiting for my paper to be mounted to a board by Creative Encounters, I started one of the compositions from that autumn movie I posted.

Standing on the table and leaning over the image with a camera, is just not the best recipe for clear, straight photographs. It is not worth the risk to smudge the work done by taking it off the table.

The plan was to have just a light grey tabletop in the bottom portion of the composition, but I decided to make it into a concrete wall. I walked down to the parking garage down the street from my studio today and took several photographs of the low concrete walls to use as reference. This change of plan will, however, make this small (hah!) endeavor take a bit longer.

If the strange delineated composition of this piece and the last one I did just doesn't make sense to you... let me show you some of my favorite paintings, which I think will clue you in partially to my pshyche.

The Death of Marat by Jacques-Loius David is one of my all time favoites, if not my favorite painting.

as is this painting by Gustave Caillebotte "Paris Street, Rainy Day." Actually look at the range of Caillebotte's paintings and the types of compositions he chose. It makes me salivate.

Add to these a fascination with all things Edward Hopper & I think you WILL understand me better!

Experimental Wisdom 2

I am taking a midday break, having to stand while working on this is taking a bit more out of me than usual. I moved my table out away from the wall and leaned against the wall while working which helped.

An Anonymous commenter asked what colors I used for the face so instead of typing them in, here is a photograph of them. If you are familiar with Polychromos, you should be able to make out the colors I think. If not, I didn't use anything unusual for me so you can search my blog for past skintone colors that look similar.

Yesterday when opening my web browser, which defaults to a news page, I was surprised to see a picture of my town Keene, NH with the heading "America's Most And Least Vulnerable Towns." Surprisingly Keene, NH ranked #3 in the LEAST vulnerable towns to the current economic crisis from a study of over 100 small cities and towns in the US by Forbes magazine.

People must have liked hearing that news because I've been stopping at Starbucks every morning for the past month (I received a $100 gift certificate for my birthday and I am stretching it out). I have been the only one in line or just one other every day for weeks, BUT today there were 9 people in the Starbucks drive-thru line! I guess people feel like they can afford a latte in Keene, NH this week.

Experimental Wisdom

On to the next one!!

I am going for it with this one. It is about 27" wide and 46" tall. Whew. See what I mean.

Since I am using Polychromos on Fisher 400 and they are very unstable on this surface, like pastels, I am more than a bit worried about this piece. How will I get it to the photographers, for instance, without smudging it? I'll worry about that when the time comes I guess.

The piece of paper fits 2/3 of my 6 foot drawing table. Don't freak out though folks, most of the drawing will be the figure at the top and then a bunch of light grey tabletop below it. I should be able to pull this off working standing up and walking around the table to get at specific parts. I would hang it on the wall and work, but it just doesn't suit my technique, and never feels right when I do that excpet for in later stages when I am just fixing things here and there.

Profile Barack Obama WIP

When I spoke to Monadnock Fine Art Gallery about my portraits, they asked if I still had my other Obama portrait. Which I don't anymore. So I said I would do another one. Again this is from a photo my friend Dan White took at a Obama rally here in New Hampshire. Thanks again Dan!

I decided to try a new paper for it: UART 500 grit. It is the archival version of Ersta paper and I thought might be similar to Fisher 400. It is similar but not the same. Fisher really grabs onto the pencil while UART 500 doesn't and consequently layers seem to disappear as you are working needing to be done over and over again. Although I do not like it as much as Fisher it is a viable alternative and it comes in a larger size than the Fisher 400.

I'll be updating this soon, although I have a busy week this week with a full set of classes, setting up for Art Walk, and the opening for Art Walk on Friday. Not to mention a very sick little 5 year old daughter. :-(

Red

RED!

Red is actually my personal favorite color in paintings. I didn't know this until I realized almost every painting I've bought has prominant red in the composition.

Just the beginnings of this one. I did a little underpainting on the teapot. Some dark green under the shaded parts and some light peach and orange under the lightest to medium parts. Then I went over it with the appropriate red for that area: dk red over the shaded and scarlet over most of the rest.

Update electric blue

click to enlarge

OK here's where I'm at. I ordered a bunch of electric blue coloursoft pencils yesterday. I have almost gone through the 2 that I had.

I also had a problem with rubbing off pencil. On the left and especially on the bottom. So I had to use some fixative on the left side. Where my arm was resting under the green pear (and rubbed off the reflections I made) will have to be redone.

Step by Step colored pencil drawing

Here is a step-by-step to entice you to come to my workshop this weekend (mentioned in yesterday's post). You will have to come to the workshop to find out the color theory behind the piece. :)

It is done using only colors from the Prismacolor Lightfast 48 color set, as that is what we use at the school. Pencils are provided for all students and Pastelbords (5x7) can be purchased at the workshop.

Feel free to click the images to see them larger. Maybe you can tell me what I'm doing in each step!