The Scribe

Since my last post featured "The Reader" I think today's is appropriate. One of the benefits of my portrait project is meeting people I likely wouldn't have had I not ventured out into this idea.

Don Gayton is an very accomplished writer (see more at www.dongayton.ca) as well as an excellent subject for painting. For a painter of people there is nothing so fun as a beard.

His portrait which I call "The Scribe" was successfully juried into the FCA 70th Anniversary show at the Granville Island Gallery in November.



Notice how engaging the eyes are and yet if I enlarge them you can see that not much detail is in there. You have completed them yourself. Sometimes less can be more. Also you can see how I've intentionally heightened the value contrast in the sunlit eye. This would not happen in reality. His pupil would contract and the value would be lighter. I liked this better as it pulls you into his eyes. Art defeats illustration in a case like this.





I am going back outdoors to paint again. The fall colours are here now and I'm looking forward to painting the winter this year.

Working Small Pt. 2

OK, jumping back into this. This morning the paint seems to be pretty stable. I guess I have saturated this canvas with enough oil that I can count on this retaining its strength.

I looked at the modeling of Mekfira's face, particularly her forehead. I wanted to warm up the parts of her face that are turning from light into shadow so I put more red in there. It's not really accurate to observed colour but the value is right and its more visually exciting. I want to draw attention to the star of my painting which is this lovely young girl.
You will also notice some stars appearing in the darkening canopy of sky.

I'm putting in more cobalt into the sky which by value contrast makes the stars pop .

Blogger isn't showing it so well but the sky is deepening and I've amplified some highlights on the clothing.
Here's a closer look at where Mekfira's face is at.

This painting is called "The Reader". When I initially painted Mekfira's portrait I was inspired by her involvement with the book she was engrossed in while sitting for me. The written word is able to transport us all to unlimited worlds and experiences. That is the idea I'm trying to express here.
I need to let this piece rest for a while and I will decide tomorrow whether it needs more work or not.

I have decided to finish this off tonight. It's always good to get comfortable and sit back to consider what if anything a painting may need. In this case I can see some weaknesses.


I decided to deal with the clothing with a stronger value range . This, I think you'll agree clarifies what is in sun and what is in shade. I thought the braids on the right needed a bit stronger work so darkened them some. There was a little annoying negative shape beside the ear that was distracting so I knocked it down. I think I'm happy now.

Working Small

Today I'll illustrate the process of creating a particular painting. It's pouring rain outside and I'm not interested in fighting the weather so I will try to pull this little project off.
I want to enter an upcoming juried FCA show and it stipulates that submitted works must be no larger than 165 sq. in. I don't usually work on such a small scale but it is good to try new things. I had to beg a chunk of canvas from my friend Will, knock together some stretcher bars and staple the thing together. This is some heavy mill cotton, more like leather but I was able to fight it to the ground. It is coated with some kind of smooth sealer suitable for Will's Giclee printing. I don't want to paint on that so I mounted the canvas un-primed side up. This could bite me as you will soon see.
Why the weird aspect ratio of 20" X 8" you ask? I have an idea for expressing a BIG idea on a small scale. 20X8=160 so I am within the guidlines. I used wide stretcher bars so I can wrap the canvas eliminating the need for a frame. This will be fun.
I will be basing my painting on a portrait I did last week of a little girl named Mekfira. I set up the completed portrait and am painting from it. Here you can see my initial block in starting to take shape.
I am already in trouble with this unprimed canvas. It is so thick and so THIRSTY. My oil paint is disappearing before my eyes. I won't turn back because I have to get this finished within a couple of days for the deadline( I didn't intentionally procastrinate, honest) . It would be smarter to prime this thing but I decide to persevere and just see what happens.
Establishing main values--feeding the beast more paint!
I want some springlike, youthful coloration as a base. There will be sky behind so I start laying some blue in; it keeps soaking back but eventually it starts to level up and behave like oil paint.
More modeling and fiddling with the hair. I think the three braids on the left are too similar so I'll start to push them around a bit once the paint stars to behave.
Okay, a little head refinement. I am warming up the lower horizon portion of the sky now.
Mekfira has some little coloured plastic decorative things in her hair. I'll start to pull some colours down into the clothing.
Okay, I think I better let this dry a bit overnight and see what I've got to work with tomorrow. I'll post this much tonight and carry it through in the morning. See you then.

Art and Excellence

I am reading about painters from the Victorian era lately. Almost completely written off by the art establishment as overly sentimental and dismissed by the modern art movement these artists are being recognized and appreciated by serious representational painters today. (by representational art I mean paintings of recognizable things as opposed to abstraction, minimalism, colour field painting or installations.)
What impresses me about these artists beyond their obvious skill in all aspects of painting is an appreciation and execution of an element that is missing in most contemporary painting.

RESTRAINT.

We really don't see much restraint in painting today. With a few exceptions when you enter a commercial gallery these days you are bombarded with bombastic, intensely high-chroma, almost electric paintings. As a painter there seems to be an impulse to scream for attention within a choir of visual psychopaths .



This painting by William Bougoureau, "Just a Taste" is an example of what I'm on about. There are strong values, great composition and palpable emotion. This isn't about photo-realism as when it is viewed closely the paintings brushwork is readily apparent. It is about pulling the viewer into a mood or idea with sensitivity and some grace. You need to spend time with this art in order to see the nuances and beauty. The artist is not bombarding our senses with unrelenting colour and textural trickery.

Think about another artistic discipline, music. We'd be bored and dissappointed if the artist cranked his amp to the max and screamed full force for an entire concert. Even metal bands use variety and space to bridge between or build up to their climatic bits. For some reason visual artists, myself included and the public have been convinced that painting must be loud to be heard.

As an example I'll humbly present my recent painting, "Okanagan Tranquility". Even though I am trying to work with a more sophisticated and controlled palatte you can see I have a long way to go.




Colour excites the eyes but is a short-lived pleasure I think. I will try to gain a little control over my palatte in future work.

Until next time.

Portrait Process

Here's a sample of the portraiture that's happening in my studio these days. I had great fun painting Lynn on saturday. This young lady is an animated conversationalist and our discussion of some lofty and compelling topics did distract me from my real job of painting. When I find myself pushing the paint around without any thoughts about values, edges or composition it is time to stop everything and reflect before proceeding. That is where we pick up on this painting.

This is my initial block-in. I've established the basic value pattern.(squint down and you'll see it ). As usual I don't worry about exact detail or even likeness. I want to get some paint down so I have something to push around with my next strokes.

A little adjusting to the left eye, the mouth and cheeks and neck.
I decided to introduce Lynn's glasses at this stage. I sometimes leave glasses off until the end to eliminate the need to paint around them. Right or wrong, I tried it differently today. That's the joy of art, you do whatever you want.

More adjustments with a little work into the hair. Lynn had arrived with slightly damp hair but as it dried it became apparent that all those blond curls could easily take over the painting. We were set up with strong, natural light washing in from the left which when it reflected off the hair gave back an amazing almost white glow.

I introduced a knocked down greenish background wash here. The intention is to use a variety of alizarian and cadmium reds in some skin tones later. The complimentry background should make the main player, the face, really pop. We'll see.

More adjustments. I leaned the eyes a bit further towards green than they really are just to please my color goal. I feel comfortable enough with how the painting is hanging together now(and it's 9:00 in the evening and if I'm going to see my wife today I better start wrapping this up) so its time to loosen up and paint that hair.

A bit of blue and orange in the shaded hair and some very blistering high key values in the sun-lit side. Some thickly applied suggestion of bright red blouse and its time to step back and leave it alone. The Blogger platform isn't very high resolution so you would have to see the actual painting or you can trust me when I say the hair frames Lynn's face without taking over.

You could pick up some smaller brushes and use a variety of colour mixes to take this to a whole different place but for this project I have arbitrarily limited myself to a size and a time frame that results in an dynamic alla prima painting.

INVITATION

You are cordially invited to join me at our reception for the Tumbleweed Show this month.

I will be hand delivering invites locally but if I miss you please feel included in our event. You can see my work from this spring/summer. I hope you can join us. Just click invite above to enlarge.

Here's a little teaser, a detail of one of my recent landscapes.


I'm sending my chicken off in search of a new home. He will be at the Nk-mip Vineyards Resort along with a few others for the month of October. Our FCA group will be showing a variety of styles and subjects. If you haven't visited this winery in Osoyoos it is beautiful.

Have a great weekend and maybe I will see you on the 22nd.

Tree of Life

I've been visiting this tranquil place among old and forgotten fruit trees. It amazes me that these sun-blackened survivors, who co-exist with cacti and rattlesnakes produce fruit. An orchardist friend informed me that these ghost orchards persevere in our semi-arid desert climate by producing a crop every second year. I liken them to old people, while pacing themselves for survival, are very capable of offering up excellent fruit in the hardest of conditions.
I painted one of these characters seen here , "Tree of Life". It will be available at my Tumbleweed show September 22.