Get Something Started (WIP)

As the year is quickly drawing to a close, I've been itching to work on a large painting or two. Last week I went out to the garage and cut a 20x40 panel with this mule deer piece in mind. The image above shows the first layer of very thin paint. This underpainting will be almost completely cover with subsequent layers of thicker paint, but sets the tone for what the finished piece will eventually look like.
The remainder of the painting will be slow going, but I will try to post progress photos from time to time. Stay tuned.
Special thanks to my friend Ray Brown for providing reference photos for this painting.

Problems to Solve

I've been working on a piece titled "Rock Star" for several months and I can't seem to finish it to my satisfaction. It has been one of those paintings that came together very quickly, only to land with a thud at the end. It's spent a large part of the past 6 months leaning against the wall facing the corner... being punished like a rotten child!

The bird... the most important element... has been the sticking point. I've painted in several, only to paint them back out as though they had perched for a second and flown away. I have gone back and forth between a white-throated sparrow and a magnolia warbler... working many poses and gestures... but they feel stiff and lifeless to me. They don't yet feel like they belong in the painting and it frustrates the hell out of me!

So I am going back to the drawing. I may even change the species of bird (again!). I'll keep working until something clicks. It's not so bad. The challenge inspires me.

"Flash - Rainbow Trout"

I thought it might be interesting to post some progress shots of my recent "Flash - Rainbow Trout" painting. Above, the preliminary block-in stage helps to establish the large shapes. The paint is pretty thin at this point and I work fast with a large brush. You can see some of the white charcoal outlines around the trout. I wanted to get the drawing correct on this important element at the very beginning. The colors seem pretty wild here and I was a bit concerned with how they would all fit together in the end.

In this image, I've refined the trout quite a bit. It's not quite where it needs to be, but at least it looks like a fish! I've also started to push the dark shape below the trout's head. It's a major element in the painting and the finished product will lean heavily on how well this area is handled.

Now things are really starting to take shape and it's starting to have an "underwater" feel. I've refined the mossy rocks on the bottom with rather large blobs of paint. Close up, the colors seem a bit ridiculous, but in the overall context of the painting, they're beginning to work. The blue swath of color behind the trout helps to give the image some depth.

More refinement and just about done. At this point, I need to set the painting aside for a few days. The rocks on the bottom are feeling a little overworked and I'm not happy with the transition between that blue swath in the middle and the rocks. That needs a bit of attention. Also, the slashes of light along the trout's body need some work. They're close, but not quite believable enough for my liking. The underside of the water's surface, on the other hand, is just about dead on.

"Flash - Rainbow Trout" 15x15 acrylic

FINISHED! I went back in with bigger brushes and simplified many of the shapes in the stream bed. I repainted nearly the entire trout to get the slashes of light to read properly and still have the trout recognizable as a rainbow. Now it's ready for a frame and the McKeever Show in September!

Importance of a Solid Underpainting

When young artists ask me for advice on painting, the first thing I always tell them is to practice drawing. The second is usually about the importance of patience and the understanding that good paintings take time. Like drawing, a good underpainting is another fundamental building block upon which everything else can be built. When I first started painting, I couldn't conceive any good reason to take the time to paint something only to paint over it again. It seemed redundant, but I was young and had little understanding of how paint works.
Of course it helps to know what you want to accomplish before ever putting down a single dob of paint.

90 minute acrylc underpainting

The small barn owl study featured here (6x8) is a terrific example using a thin underpainting to guide a piece in the desired direction. The purpose for this study is to accurately convey the essence of warm morning sun on the owl's back and head, while capturing the glow filtering through its wing. I want to have a few areas of radiance, especially around the head and upper edge of the wing. It helps to establish those warm tones now, rather than try to put them in later over a dark background. It's not impossible, but much easier to take care of it right at the get-go. This is also the perfect time to assess any drawing problems and correct them.
From here, the tones are close and the rough shapes seem to read pretty well. Now I can start refining with subsequent paint layers and much thicker paint.
Now all I have to do is finish it without screwing it up! Stay tuned.

"Rocky Basin Study"

"Rocky Basin Study" 5x10 acrylic

I don't often do such involved studies, but I wanted to work through some problem areas on this idea in a smaller scale before deciding whether or not to move to a larger panel. I'd originally planned to paint this scene in a 20x40 format. That's quite large for me. I'm glad I did the smaller study, though I'm not quite sure if I'll got quite that big on the final painting.

Visual Poetry

Since the last blog post struck a cord with so many readers, I've decided to continue in a related direction. I've included "in progress" photos to help explain the wandering path some paintings take on their way to completion.

In the previous post, I discussed someone at a show suggesting that my paintings were merely photos with paint smeared over them... an advanced version of "paint by numbers" if you will. The absurdity of that concept makes my head hurt. In the days following that rant, I've found that the practice is actually more common than one might think. Suddenly, I feel like my head is going to explode again!

White charcoal drawing over gray gesso

Yes, painting over a photo will certainly make someone's work "look like a photo," but if you lack the basics in drawing and visual problem solving, there will be no poetry in your work. If you possess these skills (see "Talent... or Skill?" Dec 8, 2011), there's no need to confine yourself to the shackles of strictly recreating a photo. That's not art. It's simply a monotonous exercise with no more challenge than a child's coloring book. Period!

Block-in stage

The actual process of making art is rarely straight forward. No matter how much planning I do (and I do a lot!), there are always unexpected problems that arise along the way. It's the unique solutions to these problems that breathe life into a painting. It's that part of the journey that makes me proud to be an artist and constantly keeps me on my toes.

Just for the sake of making a point, I've started off with a photo of my neutral gray gesso covered panel and the initial white charcoal drawing. The drawing is done with a modified grid transfer method.

Starting to refine shapes

The subsequent images show the painting in various stages of completion. I was pleased with the block-in of approximate tones and hues. It always helps when the early stages of a painting start to take on the intended feel. That keeps me excited and hungry to move forward.

As I start to refine the shapes, I also pay very close attention to contrast. The finished painting will have a relatively high level of contrast, though there will be almost nothing painted completely "black". I rarely use straight "out of the tube" black for anything. Most of the darks in my work are achieved by adjusting a base mixture of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and a bit of crimson.

Time to rethink a few elements and continue to refine

The painting begins to come together using a method I call "focus squares" (see "The Process of Focus Squares" October 13, 2009). Again, I am happy with the progress, but I'm starting to find a few problem areas... the biggest being the blue heron. I originally planned to have the bird lit up with the warm morning sun against the darker hillside in the background. The more I thought about it, I began to feel the painting would be more interesting if the heron was pushed back into the shadows behind the sun-drenched boulders in the middleground. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.....

Painting Over Photos... Really?!

Last weekend I had my paintings on display in Charleston, SC for the annual Southeastern Wildlife Expo. I always look forward to events like this. Aside from talking shop with the other artists, thousands of people pass through the doors, so it's a great time to meet and greet the public... and just maybe sell a few paintings.

As people stroll by throughout the course of the show, the comments... some meant for me to hear and some not...can be amusing, puzzling, or downright maddening. Yet there is one comment that I've heard several times over the past couple of years that I'm not sure what to do with. It usually goes something like You're just painting overtop of photos, right?

Seriously?!

I'm not aware of anyone really doing that, though I'm sure it's probably happening somewhere. That comment/accusation always catches me a little off guard and I'm never quite sure what the hell I should say. The thought that immediately comes to mind is to flash a glare that says Move along before I bust you in the mouth! (my sister calls it my "stink eye"). However satisfying it might be to send some uninformed little pest scurrying down the isle, in situations like this it's rarely productive (not to mention I'm getting too old to really pull it off and/or back it up). In public, I try to keep the stink eye under wraps.

Of course if I protest too vehemently (perhaps as I'm doing now), I look guilty as sin. If I say nothing, folks automatically think they're correct. I guess the answer is somewhere in between. If people are really interested, I usually try to explain a little about my process, though I'm never quite sure if the message gets through.

Of course I use reference photos. That's no secret. It would be impossible for me to achieve any reasonable amount of believable accuracy in my work without them. In reality, most of my paintings have elements from several photos pieced together to create an interesting composition. Most of the time, it takes a fair amount of planning and drawing to correct "flaws" in those photos that can be distracting to the overall motif. That's pretty basic for most representational painters. Some just do it better than others.

I've recently wondered if I should keep a half-finished painting on hand at these shows just to smack down the notion that my art is nothing more than paint layered on a photo poster I had made at Wal-Mart. How devastating would it be to my career if people actually started to believe that's what happens in my studio?! Sometimes I feel like I'm pounding my head against the wall.

Work In Progress... Sunflower

I've been having some fun with this small painting. My production level has been pretty low for the past few weeks, so I'm trying very hard to work my way out of this slump. The yellow and orange hues in the sunflower blossom have been quite a challenge and they're still not quite right. As I move forward with the painting, I'll keep tweaking a little at a time until I'm satisfied. Lots of cool shapes and textures in this one.

"Timeless River" work in progress

"Timeless River" detail

Here's another update on the painting currently on my easel. The detail view is about 1/3 of the overall area of the painting. I'm having fun with this one, so if all goes well... it should be finished by the end of the week :)

Water

"Timeless River" (detail) work in progress

I often think about the abstract qualities of water in my paintings. So much so, there was a time I considered doing nothing but close-up studies of ripples, waves, and reflections. It would certainly make for an interesting collection of work and endless possibilities to explore the relationships between color and shape.
I've been struggling a bit as of late. The last couple of weeks have seen very little in terms of production, but I'm working through it. Yesterday was a great day at the easel and it may signal the end of my relatively short (for me) dry spell. Working on a riverscape always seems to help.

Work in Progress: Streamscape



Currently on the easel

 One of the advantages to spending so much time on trout streams is the water itself make such interesting subject matter. This is a small section of a 9.5 x 19 panel I'm currently working on. It's an exciting piece and I'm having fun with it.

"Snow on Willow Bay" 20x30 acrylic

Here's the piece I've been working on for the past month. It's been an all-consuming task, but the end is in sight. There are still some tweaks that need to be made before I can call it "finished!", but it's 99% there. Below is a detail crop from the painting. I think I'll let this one sit for a few days before I make the necessary adjustments. Besides, there are dozens of other projects that need some attention soon. The grass needs cut, studio cleaned, laundry, dishes...

Progress

Here's another (almost finished) section of the 20x30 painting currently on the easel. It's coming along with only a few small snags to this point. Most of the hard stuff is done, so hopefully it will move quicker from here on out. Stay tuned :)

Small Progress, Big Painting

As I move forward on this large 20x30 painting, I celebrate the little victories. Above, I've included an image of a 8x12 section of the painting I've been working on for the past couple of days. I'm happy to see the brush forming along the water's edge and the accompanying reflections. I'm also pleased with my handling of all those tiny little twigs and the way they read better as contiguous large forms of color rather than thousands of singular brush strokes. As larger paintings go, this one is coming together rather quickly... especially considering the complex forms involved. There's still much to be done, but for now... I am happy :)

Barred Owl Project

Here's a little tease of a fairly large painting I'm working on. The image above is a 6" square from a 12x24 composition. It's been one of those pieces that seems to have a mind of its own. I've never used this much cadmium orange in a painting before and it was a little scary to smear so much of it on the board. Still a long way to go, but I'm starting to like this one :)
Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Water and Rocks

Most of my recent works have been relatively small pieces. My mindset lately has kept me away from the easel and I’ve really been dragging my feet getting a new painting started. I’ve been filling page after page of my sketchbooks with pencil drawings, but have had no desire to paint. Wednesday, I made myself put some paint down. Now that I’ve got the ball rolling, I’m completely energized. This is a fairly large painting and will take a considerable amount of time to finish. I don’t think I’ll post “daily” progress on this one, but will attempt to do so periodically. The photo I’ve posted here is a small portion of the larger work.

To this point, I’ve washed the base colors on the primed board, roughed in the layout with a white charcoal pencil, and began the detail work over the base colors. This painting will be quite complicated and there are several challenges I’ve not tackled in the past, so it will be an adventure. My reference material is good, to that will be a big help.

Working in relatively small squares allows me to concentrate on each small detail without being distracted by the entirety of the painting. Hopefully, I’ve worked out all the compositional elements and how they relate to each other in my preliminary sketches. Of course, paintings sometimes take on a life of their own and don’t go according to plan. Those are the times when I feel my artistic metal is really being tested. Stay tuned…

"Loonshine"

It took me a little longer than expected to finish this one off, but I’m pleased with the overall results. The background is still a little busy for my liking, but I’m not going to paint it out and rework it at this stage. Softening the edges helped. A very thin wash of flesh pink also added to the elusion of depth.

Sharing the progress was a lot of fun… and a little stressful. I’ll have to give it another shot again soon.

WIP Loon - Day 5

Finally, all of the shapes are in place. Now it’s time to assess what I’ve done and create a plan of attack for problem areas (anticipated or not). First, and most importantly, the extreme busy feel to the painting has to be changed. I hope to accomplish this by softening the edges in both the background and foreground. This will help lead the viewer’s eye to the middle ground plain and ultimately to the loon. This also is the stage where I begin to smooth out the areas that have a “brushy” look to them and do away with any remnants of my “focus frames.”

Second, some detail in the face of the loon needs to me added… especially to the eye. This can get tricky. Overdo it and the painting will take on a cartoon-like feel. Not enough and the head reads as simply a black blob. While I’m at it, I’m not happy with the shape of the loon’s head… specifically the forehead or crest area. That should be an easy fix.

Lastly, to this point I’ve used no black from the tube in this painting. All of the “black” areas are simply a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber with a touch of dioxazine purple. I may add some bits of ivory black to really make some areas pop.

I’ve uploaded this image in a larger format than usual to make these problem areas easier to see.

WIP Loon - Day 4

Yesterday was a good day at the easel. I've pushed the water to the point I think I'll be able to finish the rough shapes today (provided of course, nothing unplanned jumps up and bites me later!). Once that's done, then I can move on to the fun stuff... softening edges, strategic details, and maybe a few special affects. I'm really enjoying this one.

WIP Loon - Day 3

There was a lot of progress yesterday. I find when I’m working on a piece like this, I need to hold back on some of the more interesting areas and bite them off a little at a time. The meticulous work of painting in the sky reflections on the water is enough to drive me batty! But if I work on that for most of the day and reward myself by painting some of the markings on the loon, everything balances.
Speaking of “balance,” at this stage, the painting is starting to have a very “busy” feel to it. I will need to draw the viewer’s attention away from the movement of the water and focus it on the loon. I had anticipated this distracting predicament and have a specific plan (part of my engineering background) to mitigate the problem. Stay tuned…