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Safe Haven
The Story This week’s painting is entitled “Safe Haven”. As is sometimes the case, I didn’t begin it with a story in mind. Rather, I just set to work making the composition that I wanted, and let the story unfold in the background of my imagination. If I get out of the way and […]
A Grisaille omits most – but not all – details
The second step (after the drawing) for this week’s painting is complete. It’s a straightforward grisaille (gray painting) – probably the most common form of underpainting – using only Mars Black and Lead White. These are quick drying paints – an important consideration since I’m on a tight schedule with these weekly paintings. Ideally it […]
Using the Grid Transfer Method to Copy the Image onto the Panel
Most of my recent paintings have been in either a square or horizontal (landscape) format. This week I’m working with a composition that’s strongly vertical, and will be painting on a 14×11 inch panel. The video above shows the model I’m working from and discusses transferring the image to the panel. Once I’ve made a […]
At the Still Point of the Turning World
This week’s painting is entitled “At the Still Point of the Turning World”, which is a line from the T.S. Eliot poem “Burnt Norton”, the first of his Four Quartets. I was not looking for ways to directly reference any parts of the poem in this painting. Instead, I started to see that in this […]
The Ébauche is an underpainting with dulled colors
“Ébauche” is a french word meaning draft or first pass, and it refers to a specific type of underpainting. Rather than using black and white, as is the case with a grisaille underpainting, an ébauche uses color. However, it’s not the full, saturated color of the final painting. Instead, it tends to be desaturated – […]
A Thumbnail Sketch Simplifies the Start
As I get this week’s painting underway, I thought I’d mention the humble thumbnail sketch. After setting up the model, it’s usually the very first piece of active work on the path to the final painting. The thumbnail is just a small, rough drawing that I use to establish the composition. It’s only purpose is […]
The Court of the Pomegranate King
Here is this week’s completed painting – the first in my year-long series of 52 larger pieces. This one is done with oil on mounted linen, and measures 8×10 inches. Parts of this have dried to a matte finish. This is not desirable because it shifts the apparent color lighter than it actually is. A […]
My Current Easel Arrangement, and Painting from Memory
My Current Easel Arrangement Up until about 6 months ago, most of my work incorporated photography as at least part of the reference material. The current setup of my easel reflects that practice. Immediately to the right of it, I have a computer monitor where I’d display photographs I was working from. To the […]
Nearly Complete, but with Uneven Drying
At this point the painting is basically complete. A few details need to be tightened up and several colors need to be strengthened. In particular I want to pay more attention to the reflections in the silver creamer. I’ll also restate some of the colors in the lemon – it should have a greater saturation […]
Glazes on top of the underpainting
With a fully worked out underpainting in place, the color layer usually goes quite smoothly. Often it’s simply a matter of glazing (very thin layers of transparent paint) with the local color and then adjusting details. This was the case with the pomegranate, where I glazed the shadows with a dark transparent crimson. I then […]
Underpainting Can Improve The Final Result
Approaching the Underpainting Last night I completed the underpainting for this week’s project. Different artists have different goals for using underpaintings, and use a variety of approaches. It’s usually an opportunity to work out the composition and the values without worrying about color or detail. Basically its’ a very simplified first pass in black and […]
Starting This New Project
Today I’m starting my year-long project to make one new larger painting each week. I have several items still in my studio from the large commission painting I finished a few days ago, and I like the way they look together, so I’m using them for the basis of this week’s painting. I’ve done a […]
Mostly Complete
Happy New Year! I finished this painting last night – mostly finished, that is. There are a few small issues I want to correct, so I’ll let this dry for about a week and then spend an afternoon addressing them. But, I wanted to get this to the point of being essentially done by the […]
Mt. Parnassus and the Greek Key
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the last few commissions I’ve done has been collaborating with the collectors to make highly personal paintings. We’ve done this by carefully selecting objects that tell their stories. This painting has a few such elements, and to me the most interesting is that small circular box. The […]
Turning Point
Up until last night I had my doubts about this project – I wasn’t entirely sure I would produce something I was proud of. It’s not that I have any lack of self-confidence in front of the easel, but the size and the tight schedule meant that I wasn’t 100% sure of the result. Now […]
Glazing the Background
Today I applied the glaze to darken the background, and in this video I talk about that process and show the results.
First Pass Completed
Last night I completed the first pass. The objective of that is to get paint everywhere so I can start to work out the exact relationships between colors – especially values and temperatures. Once paint is everywhere, I find that problems sometimes become obvious that weren’t so clear before. There are a couple of issues […]
First Pass
Continuing work on the first pass. I don’t approach all of my paintings in exactly the same way. Some are done start-to-finish in just one sitting, and some have a black-and-white underpainting followed by successive color layers. This painting will be a series of “passes” – rough approximations to get some basic information down, followed […]
The Two Hardest Parts
It’s starting to feel like a painting. As I prepared myself for this project, the two parts that concerned me most from a technical standpoint were the background and the folded cloth. I began with them, since there will be multiple steps with drying time in between. I want to give the background a deep […]
Drawing in the composition
I’ve transferred the composition to the panel, drawing it in with a thin wash of Burnt Umber. This video shows the details of where the project stands at the moment: