Friday, March 18, 2011

Progress - Aria (oils) - shelved *
 
Decided to take out the horns and change the background colour. Softened up 
the jaw line. Was getting a bit annoyed with this sitting though...I wanted to work 
wet on wet, but as I tend to work on it over  several sittings, it's a bit harder 
without repainting the entire thing again.
 
I will probably call it quits on this as it was just a practice piece gone to far. 
Plus way to many other projects to work on. 
 
I may try to instead bring the painting into corel painter to finish it off, for the sake of 
mixing it up.
 
We shall see.
 
Progress - Parisian buildings (oils)* 
 
Second sitting went well. Only ended up working on the statue image however. 
I like painting the figure so it seems. Was going to work on the actual buildings, 
but as I left my make shift mahl stick ( a wooden dowel with tape on the end) at 
my old work.  Also picked up a small wooden table easel to make it easer to paint
said building as well. It seems it's hard to paint on a flat surface with oils, and 
much easier to on an easel with a mahl stick to steady the hand!
 
Will probably work on the buildings on Friday or Sunday evening, thus ensuring 
that the statue painting is completely dry.
 

Progress - Cleopatra - halted and shelved
 
while I know where my errors on this are, again to many projects, although I do 
want to finish it. I want to refresh myself with some more colour theory before I 
continue, to insure no more paint is wasted :p. 
 
Progress - Sugar Skull Beauties* 
Reworked the sketches a bit. Trying to be a bit more professional. Trying to 
focus more on composition and having a finished/finalized sketch before I start. 
I'm realizing it saves alot more time then figuring out composition and colour
before starting a piece.
 
Btw, sta-wet pallete is still wet. Best investment ever if you want to do acrylics. 
Been a few weeks and it's still good.
 
Anyhow, hope to at least paint in the bg by tomorrow and possibly transfer the 
sketch...probably will lay in with chalk.
 
Progress - sketchbook*
 
After many sketchbooks, new and old, I've realized that paper makes or break 
a book. Some are better for inks and others, just pencil. Thing is, i like to do it 
all and have had a hard time finding the best one(s) for the job.
 
I like moleskine plain paper for just jotting things down. Great for pencil...well, 
light pencil. Sucks for erasing though. Ok with pen, but kinda shows through. 
Generally though, I like the smoothness and ivory coloured paper.
 
I really like ivory colored paper. 
 
Alot.
 
So, I dropped more money then normal ( although pretty close to the moleskine 
price-point) and got an ivory paper sketchbook by Simon and Burke. 
 
Best book ever.
 
The paper is pretty durable despite it being thinner then the thicker mixed 
media pad. Handles washes pretty well, as well as thick/layered pencil crayon 
drawings. Great for colour doughs and more finished drawings.
 
Want to do a bit more with it, before I show more sketches. 
 
 
*Will post pics asap 
Note: been more busy then normal lately so I'm going to be posting only one 
day a week, rather the twice. More content to post that way :)

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Onto project progress.....


Progress for Aria
Cobra and Winsor Newton Artisan
water-mixable oils on watercolour paper

Added some more white, and fixed the jawline. Still a bit of work to go!




"Sugar" - Pet portrait
Turner watercolours on grey Stonehenge paper.

Progress on belated Christmas Gifts.....still 5/6 to go >_>.

The paper is a bit better with gouache then watercolour. Takes light washes well. Not so good for heavy ones though.



Progress for Parisan buildings and sights.
On Ampersand Gessobord

Transfered images to Ampersand Gessobord. I really like the surface texture...smooth, but not as smooth as Ampersands Claybord. I'm going to be using Cobra Water-soluble oils, and will probably start on Wednesday.

I used 3 different methods of transferring the image.

1. Drawing directly on the panel with pencil, using a photo as reference.

2. I re-drew the image on a seperate piece of paper, and traced it with tracing paper. I then took a piece of chalk pastel and coloured the back of the tracing paper. I then redrew over the tracing paper (with the Ampersand Gessobord behind it), thus transferring the image. Essential I used the chalked-back image as transfer-paper or carbon paper. Its nice if you want to draw the image in advance and don't have any carbon paper around.

3.The grid method. I made a to scale grid on a piece of tracing paper, which I laid over the original photo. I then drew in the grid on the Ampersand panel, and used it as a guide to lay in the image correctly.



Progress (FAIL)
Pelikan Gouache and Faber- Castell Polychromos
Pencils on Ampersand Claybord!

After transferring the image over with chalk (lost quite a bit in the transfer!), I started painting with the gouache. It seemed to sit on the top, which got frustrating. Every time I put down another stroke, it would pick up the one before. This lead to the paint caking, and occasionally being lifted away. Was annoying as this was mostly in the face area. After about an hour of annoyance, I sanded it down a bit, and went over it with Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencil crayons. They are oil based pencil crayons that are really rich and creamy, as well as extremely soft. The seemed to fix it a bit, but not that much.
I think I'm going to scrap this piece and redo it using Bombay Indian inks instead. A co-worker said that it looks amazing, so I'll try it. I'll redo the transfer as this one didn't go that well. I have 2 boards left...so there is some room for error and experimentation yet.



Progress for SugarSkull Beauties (1 of 3)
Tri-Art Acrylics, Golden Mediums on Ampersand Hardbord.

Hoping to also start this tomorrow. I have my new Sta-Wet palette ready to go (best invention since acrylics ><), and am extremely exited to start painting. I got really into acrylics a few months back and was trying to avoid oils....but I love oils and acrylics to much to give either more time over the other.
The Sta-wet palette I purchased (mostly for this painting session), was to try to keep the paint wet longer so I could do a several sitting painting....so to stretch it in the same way as oils. I think it might actually work a bit better then the water-mixable, as they dry within a few days of being out in the open, while the Sta-wet palette is still wet after days (closed of course!).

I may update again in the next few days. Will probably have some better shots to as I have a better camera which is over 2mps now -_-!

Till next time....
So, I'm going to be a little bit longer with the next post.

Over the weekend I started a ton of projects, which required more sketching then actual painting. I'll post this weekends sketchings tonight.

I did however (almost) finish a small piece that was meant to be gouache on Ampersand Claybord, that became sanded down gouache, with pencil crayon on top....it looks better then the first atempt, but not happy with it. I should have stuck to inks and watercolours on the board....its just a tad to absorbent for pelikin gouache.

I also started drawing out the 3 paintings based on buildings and sights in Paris.
I transferred them to Ampersand Gessobord using three different methods, which I will post this evening.

On top of that I should have progress pictures for the previous projects I started.

I haven't really worked on the oil study, but have done some work on the portrait of Aria (better cheekbones).

I'll try to post as much as I can this evening, and might even have the Hardbord paintings ready to start!