An Elephant in the Room

"An Elephant in the Room." 8 x 10 in. OIl on Panel

Hey everyone!!! For my up coming show I have been trying to paint more still life's. I have an Elephant collection that I started when I was young and this one made the cut for this painting. Because this was a small painting and not too complex I decided to draw straight on the panel. I started out with charcoal on a wood panel I prepared myself. Lately I have been working on wood panels or linen mounted on panel. When I prepare the panels myself I have a lot more control over the absorbency and texture of the surface.

My Sight-Size Set Up.

Recently I realized that I wasn't posting enough of the drawing stage of my work so for this painting I wanted to show a couple stages of that. I often draw with straight lines blocking in everything in a general way. I focus on the major heights, widths and angels to later break them down into the more complex shapes. Every drawing I do I think more about building a solid foundation to work off of instead of dressing it up with the little details.

Block-In

Block-In Articulated

After I've articulated my block-in I now have enough information to start the painting. First I wanted to dry brush raw umber over the panel for two reasons. One reason was to elaborate the drawing and the other was to establish the tones.

Raw Umber Drawing

Raw Umber Drawing with Background 

After I've finished the raw umber drawing and background I left the painting to dry because it was bed time. I've learned long ago that when I'm tired I tend to make bad painting decisions and also caught myself rushing.

First Painting Stage

The first Painting Stage for me is sort like sketching in the approximate color of the still life. I try my best to match the colors I see in life knowing I'll be adjusting them later on in the painting. Like the drawing stage I aim for the big notes of color focusing on the masses of light and shadow. The details and nuances of color can be added at a later stage of the painting.

First Painting Completed

Here is the finished First Painted Stage. This base will serve as a color guild for me to finish my still life. Of course there will be many things to change and revisited such as color, tones and edges. First painting allows me to paint freer and more confidently in the last stage. I can think more about certain light effects or taking liberties with the colors.

The Finished Painting

The finished painting is basically a polished version of the first painting stage. I got to play around with the shine of the metals and the stains on the wood of the elephant. I wanted the head of the elephant to be more in focus then the rest of the body. So all of my sharpest edges, highlights and tonal jumps are all in the head region. I did push the colors a bit more intense then the where in life. Although I really did see these blues, violets and red and I was inspired by them. The last thing I'd like to point out is that in the medallions I built up some impastos to catch the light. I like impastos, they are kind of a cheap party trick but they definitely make a convincing illusion of shine and highlight.

Distracted Gourds

"Distracted Gourds." 12"x20"in, Oil on Linen.

Hello everyone here is the newest addition to my up coming solo show at the Royal Gallery this April. Funny enough I bought these Gourds back in November 2010 during Thanksgiving. I knew at the time I wouldn't be able to paint them right away but I also didn't want to miss the season and not paint them till next year. When these guys came home with me the where mostly green with spots of orange. Their original color patterns where the thing that attracted me to them. Well, I forgot about these poor guys in a pile of still life objects waiting for their time to shine. When I eventually found them again they had aged into their perfect state. Mold had started to overtake a couple and I figure I didn't have much more time to wait. I had to start and finish this painting before they where to rot and cave in on themselves.

The Cartoon Pencil on Paper
 

There was a lot of interesting angels and shapes in these Gourds so I wanted to nail them down the best I could. I have always been able to draw much faster and more accurately with a pencil. Starting my painting on paper first allows me to figure out the proper size and placement of the still life on my surface. I have always found it a pain to cut, resize and then re-stretch a finished painting onto new stretchers. The Cartoon stage has been the easiest way for me to by-pass this annoying bump in the process.  

Still Life set-up and First-Painting Stage.

In this photo above I have already made an oil transfer and went straight into the first painting stage of this still life. Typically I like to use a raw umber tonal wash to establish more of the drawing and tones before I get into the color. With this painting I felt confident with what the tones and colors where going to be. An added advantage to finding the correct tones and color was the linen was toned to the same color and value as my palette.

First Painting the Gourds

Here Is my first guess at the colors in the gourds. My first attempt is always to find a middle of the road color I can paint into with littler and darker values. I tend to break up the drawing between the shadows and the lights. In the lights I like to limit my range of value by just focusing on the lightest light, middle tone and half-tone. Fine detail or unique broken color I leave to the last layers of paint.

Completed First-Painting Stage

I have now completed the base in which I will paint over in later stages. Now I have enough information in front of me to work off of and take everything to a finish piece by piece. Notice that I haven't touched the background and left it the tone of the linen. Because it was so close to the tone of the actual background there was no need to waste anymore time over one value shift.

The Starting of Second-Painting 

Close up

In Second painting I start painting the larger forms and gradually work towards smaller and smaller forms until I am working on the tiny little details. 

The Finished Painting

You may notice that in this final stage I have added the mold. I waited for the painting to dry and then  

scumbled a light blue/gray color over the parts where I wanted the mold. If I where to have painted it wet into wet I would have risked mixing the two colors too much. There is a certain quality of scumbling that  better suits the painting of the mold. Often it appears dryer and dragged so that bits of the orange can show through. The background was finished by weaving broken colors of warm, cold and neutral grays.

Finally in working on the wood I focused of the most interesting parts that made up its character. I was faced with the question of painting every single grain, notch and crack or generalizing to not pull attention away from the gourds.  The best bet seemed to focus on the major stains and cracks and let the distractions remain in life.

From and For My Love

From and For My Love, Oil on Linen, 16" x 14" in.



 

Hello all!!! For this painting I wanted to try something that I'm not too accustom to doing. Lately I have been seeing a lot of artist who inspire work in a similar manner. Basically one starts the painting and works on it piece by piece until it is eventually finished. This working method takes much concentration and discipline not to rush and push ahead. Matching Color and Tone is done by comparing the adjacent hue and value. This technique also benefits from color studies and an accurate drawing.

So I started this painting as I commonly do with still life, with a pencil drawing on paper. This stage gives me a clearer understanding of the composition and relationship of the objects in it. I think of it as a confidence building stage. The more time I spend on this stage the easier the painting will be. Lately I have found myself in this stage longer making sure all of my articulation is well represented. 

Pencil drawing on paper

After my drawing has enough information to work off of I transfer it to my linen. The linen I painted on was a fine weave #13 triple oil primed Linen. I then toned the linen with a light neutral value using Lead White, Raw Umber and Cobalt Blue. 

Raw Umber Tonal Wash

Once the drawing is transferred I rub on some of the tone in a general way with Raw Umber. I like to leave this wash to dry for a day or two so that the under color doesn't mix with the colors I place over them. 

Still Life Set-up

For no rhyme or reason I stared with the orange. 

Coloring the Orange

 

Building the Background to Assist the Foreground
 

So far in one day I only managed to knockout the orange and a bit of the blue fabric. 

Establishing the Shadows on the Copper Pot

Rendering the Form of the Copper Pot

Base Platform Rendering

Rendering the copper pot took quite a bit of time and the photo above shows the end of my second day of the color applications. I'd like to mention now that I am very cognizant of my edges and how one is painted into the other. My biggest pet-peeve is to see one edge bumping up against the other or God forbid a halo of raw canvas between two colors. 

Adding the Shadow Color to the Blue Fabric 

Laying in the Blue Fabric

Rapid Application of the Wood

Further Modeling of the Wood

Finishing Up the Copper Pot

In the photo above I'd like to point out the chalkiness of the background in the darks of the upper left hand corner. This is called sinking in. Sinking in is a common occurrence when oil dries and is absorbed from the under layers but much more noticeable in the darker pigments. I have been using a mixture lately of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber in place of Ivory Black. I find It dries much faster and will not lift like Ivory Black does while Oiling Out the sunken in areas. If I really need a value as dark as Ivory Black I can use in during my last pass over the panting.

The Linen is Covered with Color 

The linen is covered with color but is it correct? I must now wait for the painting to dry and Oil it Out to check for any areas that my need touch ups or repainting.  After Oiling out I saw many areas that need to be reworked. The major area that needed the most work was the blue fabric. I had noticed some edge and tonal problems. I remedied these areas by totally repainting the background in once shoot making sure everything was painted wet into wet. Other than the background fabric I just fiddled around adding details and highlights until I arrived to the end of this piece.

The Finished Painting

Thank you for viewing.

The Angel Academy of Art's Academic Process Videos UPDATED!!!

Hey everyone!!! So as I promised before here is the update of The Angel Academy of Arts Academic process video #3! This I felt was a good conclusion to the series. I especially loved to see the student work and my buddy Juan Pablo Ruiz Killing it on that still life. It was an optical illusion for me to see still life painting. I thought what I was seeing was his set-up until he started laying his brush on it.

I'd also like to point out another painting that was done by my other friend Matthew Grabelsky. He had done a life size portrait of me during his last stay in Florence. I was pretty impressed that he was able to paint very detail of all of my tattoos. 

I hope you all enjoy and thanks for checking in. 

The Skull Demo

The Specimen

Hey Everyone, I wanted to take this time to post another painting demo base on how I paint red fabric. Countless times people asked how I did it, what colors that I used and what was my painting process. Well to start this is a technique that I learned while studying still life painting at The Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. After cast painting learning to render red cloth was our first task to tackle in still life.
The idea behind painting red is having a wide range of value  maintaining a high chroma throughout. That being said how does one lighten red without changing it to pink or orange? Any addition of white will not only make pink but lower the chroma. Orange can work well to lighten red only a couple of values while maintaining its chroma but not 100% convincing. The way in which I was taught was a type of glazing technique. In the nature of glazing, applying a thin and darker value over a light ground will with most colors retain and heighten it's chroma. So in this demo I will be using the lightest value ground I can think of, the white of the oil primed linen. The majority of the glazing will be done with transparent and semi-transparent reds.

sight-size set up

I started the drawing for this still life using the sight-size method. I find it the easiest way to check my proportions, angles and form relationships. I can simply flick my eyes back and forth to check for drawing errors and then change them just as fast as they are noticed. Instead of drawing with oil paint directly on the linen I opted to start  by using pencil on paper. I find I have more control over the composition of the painting before I transfer it onto the linen. Starting in this way is also beneficial in this painting in order to maintain the white of the ground. Any stain or residue of color on the white ground will detract from the luminosity of the future red glazes.

The skull transferred to linen

After I have transferred the finished drawing onto linen I can then start the underpainting. I carefully wash raw umber into the background and skull being mindful no to contaminate any of the areas that will be red.

The Raw Umber wash drawing.

When the Raw Umber wash was dried I toned the background and shadows with Ivory Black.

Wash drawing toned with black.

The next stage is what they called the first painting stage at the Angel Academy. This is the stage where all of my first guesses are made in establishing all the other colors and tones. This is the first time that I visit the red cloth area. I used Scarlet Red from Winsor and Newton for the first layer in rendering the cloth. I don't use any medium to apply the red, I just scrub it in with a bristle brush. The important thing to keep in mind is to apply leave a thin even layer.

First Painting Stage

I continue to rework the skull and background elements trying to resolve drawing errors. Because I was able to state in a general way the the colors and tones I'll be using I can start to render and bring to a finish the small forms. At this time I'd like to finish as much as I can to let the red I just applied to dry thoroughly. Each layer must be dry so that older layers do not lift.

Refinements of first-painting.

I used Cad. Red lt.,Cad Red med. and Alizarin Crimson to scrub over the dry bright red base. I started with Cad Red lt. first working from light to dark. My brush was almost dry so that I could incrementally darken the cloth with the most control and not over work any of the areas. For every darker value red I added I had to let the previous layer dry. The shadow areas of the red I used a Persian Red base and glazed with Alizarin Crimson and Ivory Black.

The final Product.

With a lot of time and patience you can arrive at an impressive affect that is difficult to achieve with Direct painting methods. I hope that I could answer some of the those technical question people have asked me over the years. If anyone has any other question feel free to leave a comment. Thank you very much.