Chuck Larivey OPA, Oil Painter: October 2012

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Sunday morning

I'm sitting here thinking about what to paint next. Yesterday I finished a 36x36 Koi & Lily #746 - the second one in this rotation. Also one was sold yesterday at an annual fund raiser.....I'm pretty pleased about that because the proceeds go to ChildSavers, one of my favorite causes in Richmond. They have a dedicated staff and do a wonderful job helping children placed in harms way and this will help. All-in-all a good Saturday....:=)

#692 Koi & Lily Pads 44x40 oil on linen - SOLD

Everyone here is all excited waiting for our new party host hurricane Sandy to arrive....except me - don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a party. Brenda, my wife and my son Chris went out yesterday and purchased (2) coolers in anticipation of our celebrating a no-power week - living in Richmond we get to celebrate a lot....last time it lasted (8) days. I especially enjoyed that one! In fact we enjoyed it so much we gave our gracious host a gift, our boat the Ivory Falcon. So forgive me for wanting to avoid the party and just paint....Perhaps I'll get to enjoy both as I did last time.....see, I knew there was a silver lining somewhere - not many parties I could do that at. I think Richmond needs a new welcome slogan "Welcome to Richmond, buy a generator"

OUR HOSTESS GIFT TO IRENE 2011

Ivory Falcon (formally Hostess 11) Grounded just before the storm hit

With Tow line at high tide or was it high tide?

Not looking good - pilot abandons ship

Last view

Monday, October 22, 2012

Mondays 3nd Life model

This session we had a good model in my son Chis, he has definable features - especially at a distance. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I have no photos to share.

#740 Full figure (2) 20-minute sets 10x8 (10-15-12)

#741 Head study (4) 20-minute sets 14x11 oil on linen (10-15-12)

I changed positions and really moved way back for this one perhaps 30 feet or more - it was raining so the natural light was almost non existent but the light on our model was more dramatic and it removed unwanted details. My main objective is about light and shadow and capturing my colour impressions. If I got that part right it should capture a fair likeness too. What I like about this one, I captured the natural daylight as well as the warm spot place high over his right side.

LOL....his mother is right, he does look older so maybe in 10 years this will look like him.

Our next model is Lorelle, a stunning young woman with movie star presence.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Not much going on

Not totally true, but it feels like it...maybe it's the election that has diverted our attention these days - even the galleries seem quiet.

Monday I went to my 2nd life model session.....tough model - she was very striking and should have been easy.

2nd Life Model

View from my location

Not wanting to get mired down in unwanted detail I was actually quite a distance from our model.

#736 Full figure study (2) 20-minute sets 10x8 oil on linen (10-8-12)

Close up

#737 Head study (4) 20-minute sets 14x11 oil on linen (10-8-12)

I overworked her face - it makes her look much too old and severe...I had the time to fix it but decided since my colours, light and shadows were not bad to sign off on this one. I definitely have some work ahead of me.

Originally I only wanted the full figure but now think I'll keep doing a head study too. If I use the same format going forward I can get both done in 3 hours.

Our next model will be my son Chris.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Painting by the square

A while back I did this experiment - kind of a problem solving thing for night painter who has little time to paint these days. I used the theory that if you could spend an hour painting a small 8x10 - why not apply that time to a larger canvas over a number of sessions and at the end have a solid painting as opposed to small ones with little value for time spent.

After looking at the photo file and the history of this 30x30 painting afterwards - it worked. And if it worked for me it could work for anyone with little time by becoming a very productive "nine-square painter"

#669 Koi and Lily Pads 30x30 oil on linen (6-13-12)

This painting took (3) days because I mixed it up with other chores - some times I did 2 or 3 squares at a time - I never work on more than one painting at a time so it had my continuous attention....and I completed a square before moving to the next - doing as little square crossing as possible.

Lessons learned

Conquer and divide worked again - nine equal grids match photo reference
Easy focus - used an organized random approach so the adjacent square didn't influence me - a bit like a puzzle.
Maintained colour control - forced to colour match into the next square
Light and shadow - easier to maintain because of painting colour shapes

The file has too many photo's to post but, each is important so I used movie maker and made a slide show.

#669 Movie clip

When it was finished I used it as my 2012 OPA Eastern entry and it was accepted - so right now the painting is in Bennington, Vermont. It was not good enough to win any awards however it might cause a future trip to the bank:=)

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Painting from a model

Monday was a nice break, I attended a life model session at Crossroads. It's an every week thing put together to explore the clothed human figure. Crossroads has a wonderful space to do it in too. I missed the first two sessions but got to it Monday.

I caught a lucky break because we had a good model...not all are. Often a bit to pretty without strong paintable features. But, Alan our model......he had some character...a reason to spend time painting him. He clearly has some stories barely visible but none the less there. I don't know much about our model, I believe he's retired, not bad looking, tall, glasses and graying hair and some facial hair - he even had a striking contrasting outfit that worked!