Pop Goes the Artist!

While working on my most recent painting of Lucy, I got the idea to take pictures of it in various stages of progress. I’ll admit that my method of working is not particularly complex, simply because my style of painting is not particularly complex. Three-quarters of the time I spend on a painting, I’m just readjusting the “geography” of the painting, adding more layers of paint for opacity, making edges harder, etc. But what the heck. I took the pictures, so I might as well post them. So, step one: cover the canvas with off-white gesso. It seems to help the colors go on more opaque, meaning I have fewer layers to paint. Always a bonus.

Next, I take my big line drawing, done on newsprint, and transfer it onto the cavas. I do this by rubbing the back of the newsprint drawing with charcoal, then taping the newsprint to the canvas and tracing back over my lines. This works better than trying to do the drawing directly onto the canvas, since it’s hard to erase thoroughly on canvas. Almost any painting I do starts out with a photograph I’ve taken. I draw a grid over the photo, then use the grid to make an approximately 8×10 line drawing. Then I use a bigger grid to make the first drawing into the full-size one I transfer onto the canvas. It adds an extra step, but I feel like it helps me to get a more accurate drawing, so it’s worth it.

Now I start painting. I generally add the colors in no particular order, although I usually do the bigger areas first. I use colors straight out of the tube whenever I can, because mixing is a pain. That said, this background was a mixture of (I think) brilliant green, cadmium yellow, and perhaps a bit of white, but probably not.

This is where the painting starts to look “done” even though I actually have a fair amount of work left. All the major colors are down, so it’s just a matter of adding highlights and shadows for form, redoing shapes (in this case, I made a lot of changes on the left side of her face), and correcting mistakes, smudges, etc. When I finally feel it’s finished, I sign it and then paint the edges so that it can hang with or without a frame. I almost always sign in black; the color I choose for the edges depends on the painting. If it has a lot of background color and a fairly simple color scheme, as this one does, I usually use the background color. Otherwise, I use black.

The finished product! This is still not the best photograph; I tried it again minus the late afternoon sun, but now it’s underexposed. I think that’s a little better than a glare, but it’s still not perfect. The other step-by-step photos actually offer a fairly accurate idea of the colors, so I’m not going to spend too much time worrying about it. On the whole, I’m rather pleased with this one, although Red Lucy is still my favorite. I’m envisioning a series now, with two more to follow–one with a yellow background and one with bright blue. We’ll see. I love photographing and painting Lucy. She’s fast becoming my “muse” although I should probably try to branch out some, eh? (”Green Lucy” acrylic, 20×24″)

This project wasn’t on my “to do” list, but I was scrolling through the pictures on my computer and thought that Lisa’s senior pic would make a nice practice portrait, especially since I wanted to experiment with the style for “headshot” type compositions. Then I saw a tube of the background color (Liquitex turquoise green) on clearance at an art supply store and it all came together last night and this afternoon, in an unexpected tribute to Andy Warhol (at least where color scheme is concerned). I’m happy with both the likeness I achieved and with the style, although it feels a bit weird to do a portrait of someone without them knowing and then posting it on the Internet. (Lisa, if you’re reading this: Hi, I’m not a stalker, and would you like the painting?) It was, as I said, strictly for practice. I like doing portraits and this is a nice size to work in. (9×12″ acrylic on canvas board)

Technical notes: I scanned it, so it’s slightly cropped (although nothing important is missing) and the colors are a little duller and lighter than they are in real life. I played with the brightness, saturation, etc a little bit but didn’t think it was worth too much stressing. Just know that the background color is much prettier in person.

I started this painting over Christmas break, but thanks to the joys of living away from home, didn’t get to finish it until this weekend. (However, you might have seen a work in progress photo on the website.) I painted this because I love old Beetles, pure and simple. I used a reference photo someone from WetCanvas gave me, but I just had to change the color from white to powder blue, which is my favorite. I’m reasonably happy with the way this turned out. I didn’t initially like the yellow-orange/powder blue combination, but I think it’s a good fit and they complement each other nicely. I think the composition is a little shaky, but that might just be me. I never know what to do with backgrounds anyway. In real life, by the way, the black in the shadows is actually, well, black. Not sure why that didn’t turn out in the photograph. Glare? (Acrylic on canvas, 20×24″)

I realized, last time I was over at Christie’s house, that I hadn’t taken a photo of the pop art painting I gave her for her birthday more than a year ago. I did it the summer of 2004, which means it was right after our junior year. The likeness on this one is not outstanding, which I attribute to the crackpot method I used to get the line drawing. (Don’t remember exactly what I did, but I know it didn’t involve gridding and pencil sketching a photo, which is what I usually do.) So anyway, here it is. (acrylic on canvas, don’t remember the size. 18×24″??)

Last night I finally finished this portrait of James playing guitar that was his Christmas gift. I gave it to him this morning and it was a hit. I have to say, I’m really happy with the way it turned out. It’s the biggest thing I’ve painted so far and it was a major challenge to take a (rather poor) 4×6″ photo and make it look all right at six times that size. I’m continuing to refine the style I began in Mrs. Carpenter’s painting and the Lucy painting. It’s kind of exciting to have a “style” that is distinctly mine. I mean, it’s not a completely unique way of painting, but at this point, I’m not sure there are any of those left. Its official title is “James” and it’s a 24×36″ acrylic on canvas. Woo hoo.

In other news, I’ve decided that when I am a fabulously wealthy artist with my own custom-designed studio, I will have a servant whose sole task is to clean my palettes for me. Failing that, I’ll have a sink that comes up to a normal standing height, so that after I’ve finished scrubbing half-dried acrylics out of the corners of two palettes, I’ll still be able to stand upright. I mean really–if it kills my back this much when I’m 18, imagine how it’ll feel when I’m 45.

Next up on the projects list: Finish up the painting of a VW Beetle that I’m working on, then start on a set of acrylic gouache/watercolor/calligraphy prayers to donate to my parish and my middle school for their upcoming silent auction fundraisers. I also want to use the last of my Border’s gift card to buy a book on medieval calligraphy and manuscript illumination.

Next on my list of new skills to learn: gilding (especially in the context of illumination), paper making, and silk screening (which, yes, has been on this list for years). Also possibly bookbinding. I’ll have to read up on that.

Feeling like this is going to be a very good year, art-wise.