Everyday Geometry 1,2,3 30x30ea

The Greatest Trick...24x48

An Apple a Day 36x36 (commission)

"19" 45x45 (commission)

Disk Duckies 15x15 (commission)

Junior Mints for Jody 40x60 (commission)

Finished Marble Painting

Ahhhh...finished at last. 

Marble Painting Continues...

Ok, so my last evaluation of the painting left me feeling as though I should have gone in and worked the shadows some more, but I just wasn't getting in to it. I decided instead to jump in with the marbles and worry about resolving the shadows further down the line. Made sense, after all, I need to start working the painting as a whole so that it doesn't read as separate parts. Its time to get paint covering all the canvas. Mission almost accomplished... only the bottom two marbles still show the under painting.

Marble Painting Further Progress

As predicted, my next step was indeed to fill in the background and start working on the cast shadows of the marbles. This time the shading is deliberately painted that way rather than poor lighting and camera phone limitations. One of the bonuses of taking photos is that they help me see the painting as a whole. I am already finding areas that need more blending that I didn't notice before, even when I stepped way, way back on the piece. I am not done with the shadows by any means, and won't be until I start the marbles and can develop the relationship between the two. However, my goal in this step was to blend the outer edges of the shadows into the background and I can now see where I missed the mark.  The shadow on the red marble in particular looks too hard. I also struggled with the shape of the shadow on the big blue marble and it shows. I guess I'm going back in...

Marble Painting in Progress

This is an iphone shot of a large commission piece that I am currently working on.  At 58"x58"  it is one of the largest pieces I have ever tackled, and I though it would be a great opportunity to track my progress.

Building the panel was the first step, and I suspect, when all is said and done, it will have been one of the most time consuming. I usually paint on mounted rag board, but given the size of this piece that was not really feasible. So I opted for a  very fine weave portrait linen stretched over cradled Luan board for rigidity. I then did 6-7 ( I lost the exact count) coats of gesso with sanding in between. This erased all traces of the linen weave. I didn't sand down my final coat too finely- I wanted to leave some tooth to the surface ( I dislike painting on an overly slippery/slick surface). Between sanding all the layers, the drying time, and the rookie mistakes (there were several), the panel took over a month to be prepped to where I was satisfied with it. 

The next step was my drawing. I did a charcoal drawing of the marbles and their cast shadows. I wish I had thought to take a picture at that stage... at least you can still see traces where I altered the composition by moving the upper left marble up and in a bit. I know many artists like to start their drawing directly with paint, but I have to work my way up to the oils. First I draw in charcoal, then I block in the color with gouache and then, finally, I get into the oils. This photo was taken the color block gouache stage. Since the final background color for his piece is a light cream/beige I just left it the white of the gesso –no need to fill in with gouache. The warm and cool tones and the shadows you see are just the result  of my poor camera choice – it really it is just a white background at this stage. I'm hammering that point because I know that the next step is actually adding the shading to the background and I want it to look like I actually did something! I will be sure to bring my good camera...