A weeks worth of paint and canvas - gold leaf & finish of canvas 931

Last week I modified canvas 931 with the idea of adding some gold leaf details - kind of a warm up I can mess with a bit and remove if I don't like the results. I started a new 44x40 canvas 997 while it dries.

CANVAS 997

997-1 44X40 (11-3-15)

I used both brush and a palette knife - a knife to break up things up and a brush to hide the fact I did. Its a rather effective way of making cool looking edges. As you can see I have a composition using strong separation of  light and shadow. I also sized my photo reference to the canvas size and divided it and the canvas up into 4 quarters. I want to maintain my proportions and this is an easy solution. Since I apply paint direct there is no drawing involved. The segments keep things in proper scale so all I do is apply paint (shapes and colours) until it feels right. Eventually as the area closes up the details are refined.

997-2 (11-3-15)

Now the light (sky reflection) is clearly established. A very stylized painting developed rather quickly. Really all that remains is refining details like deepening shadows and highlights, improving shapes and most important; do I add gold leaf?  

If I do, only how and where has to be determined... This is where I wish I had 3 or 4 throw away canvases to play with - printed canvas comes to mind as a workable solution but I don't have that luxury at the moment. Don't lose that thought because its valid. So the old fashion way is the only way, do it and hope it works. The way I want to use gold is discreetly as a subtle controlled highlight......we'll see

MY SET UP

I decided to experiment and use a clear acrylic paste by Golden as my size, wet and straight from the jar. My gold leaf is standard metal leaf because I'm not ready for the real stuff yet. With a brush I dip in the paste, apply a dab to the area, then pick up a bit of metal with it and work it to a textural shape like a nugget, highlights and surface debris. Edges are real important here and it has to look right as though it were meant to be....part of the oil.

FINISHED PAINTING

997-3 Untitled with Gold Leaf 44x40 oil on linen (11-5-15)

DETAILS

I wasn't totally happy with the Golden paste by itself. The golden paste did dry reasonably fast and I could tell where it was unlike size. However it required two operations with time in between to complete my thought - so I lost a bit of energy re-emerging my oil paint into the gold.

Nice experiment but I'm going back to just adding my gold on top of my wet oil and work it in and add more until it feels right. One operation, one move to complete my thought....which is how I work. Those were my most successful first attempts last year.

With that in mind I want to return to modified canvas 931, which is dry enough to precede with gold leaf details.

CANVAS 931 HISTORY

931 Incognito 62x48 oil on linen (10-13-14) 

931 Koi added (11-2-15)

GOLD LEAF DETAILS

 931-1 Gold leaf details (11-6-15)

Nature gave me a helping hand via my overhead skylight and dropped a few well placed afternoon sun beams on my canvas....only a fool would have ignored. This is the glow I was trying to capture in my painting in the first place.

WELL PLACED SUN BEAMS

As much as I like the effect I'll save it for another time

BACK TO IT WITHOUT NATURES HELP

931-2 Gold leaf details (11-7-15)

COMPLETED CANVAS

931Untitled with Gold leaf details (11-8-15)

All I need is a new title, a bit of vanish, and canvas 931 is ready to be introduced again. The modifications required (6) complete sessions and was well worth the extra time.

DETAILS 

A weeks worth of paint and canvas - Boldbrush

If you're an artist and have a website with FASO you know about the monthly Boldbrush contest. Everyone has their own take on it; mine is it promotes good front end exposure and if you browse a bit you get to see what other artists are up to. I like to enter in the last few hours so I land on the first page everyone sees visiting the Boldbrush site.....makes sense because there are a lot artists who enter. I have a short attention span as I suppose most others do when it comes to browsing. Well it's that time again.....do I or do I not put on a competitive hat and enter. Like it or not, art is competitive and difficult to avoid becoming consumed by in some form or other. I'm competitive in nature and it's taken me a while to understand it's not the healthiest reason to pick up a paintbrush. In this case it's free with the FASO site and a shame to throw free exposure out the window. Optionally we can also pay for additional entries if we feel especially frisky with ourselves and lady luck......

This painting was born out of a planned power outage the other day....6 hours of cold turkey. That meant no computer, no music, no Starbucks coffee..... So in strange silence broken only by outside noise I never really hear, I pushed paint all day, even after the power returned.

QUICK BLOCK OUT

 Shown on easel with photo reference

996 COMPLETED - study in blues and greys

 Garden Flowers 24x24 oil on linen (10-30-15)

I do few still life paintings but with only one session and a loose 24x24 canvas it seemed a good practice choice. The deep French Blue Hydrangea is one of my favorite flowers and always posed a painting challenge for me. The companion flowers long graceful stems compliment the more structured hydrangea. My unknown flower if arranged right has wonderful 3D possibilities which were captured a bit here by pushing deep shadows and pulling out strong highlights. 

 DETAIL

Garden Flowers is the last finished painting of October and probably a good candidate for Boldbrush. It won't win any prizes but I like it well enough as a single session painting.

REWORKING A PAST PAINTING

I've been fooling around off and on with leaf the last few weeks. Last year about this same time I did this little painting towards the end of a collection based on air as the prime painting intent. It was an interesting time because I was all over the place or so it seemed. But history always deems them as a collection of ideas that are either used, set aside or discarded as we move forward. A few weeks ago I got interested in some of those canvases again because of a renewed interest with gold leaf and some Koi I wanted to use this go around.

The Koi were in a lot of tree shadow and just glowed as they hit the light.....oddly so, on a very grey day. This particular painting is also from the same pond and reminded me of the day......so instead of starting a new canvas, I thought it better to use this canvas as a warm up.

This particular painting also had a very cool title, suggestive in nature "Incognito".

STARTING POINT

931 Incognito 62x48 oil on linen (10-13-14)

931-1 REWORK(10-31-15)

931-2 Rework (11-1-15)

931-3 Rework completed (11-2-15)

All done for now! It has a few more days to dry before going back in with my gold leaf details. The painting as it is didn't lead me exactly where I wanted to go but I like it well enough and want to remove the gold if I don't like it. When I start out doing something, especially like this crazy move, messing with a perfectly good painting, I don't always know why. But eventually I stumble through and I see it loud and clear.

A Weeks worth of paint and canvas - numbers in titles

I number my paintings because otherwise it would be a bloody nightmare keeping track of the buggers. So I know for sure I'm 5 paintings away from completing my 1st thousand........better than a guess, which would surely be exaggerated  or underestimated a bit. Tracking numbers and dates is a good thing. I didn't mind 3 numbers in my title but not excited about using 4; something about it feels unnaturally out of balance. I'm sure its just in my head, but I have been thinking about it because it's a lot of numbers in a title. Perhaps a number alone would be a simple solution, and everyone knows computers love numbers.....although sometimes the title is as important as the painting itself. My guess is I'll get use to using 4 numbers sooner than later.....perhaps a lower font to diminish it's importance.

In between all this thinking, number 995 emerged from my white canvas and I suppose one could say it was born with its own social security number. After all it will have the tax man too........think about it.:=)

PAINTING 995 an exercise in yellow 

JITTERS 40x44 oil on linen (10-27-15)

A thousand paintings is a lot of paint and canvas to go through, not to mentions frames. If I count up the days, which I did out of curiosity, my number is 2,410 days working as an oil painter.....so about 2.4 days per painting. I guess all this numerical fluff is useful establishing bench marks or a glimpse into future possibilities - for me its a simple organizational necessity. I'm thankful organizational skills prevailed over leaving a scattered trail of work. It is also a valuable learning tool as a visible digital record of my progress as an artist--a record I can study at will.

Jitters stayed on the easel much longer than my average 2.4 days. In truth, a painting is done when it's done or when the energy field dissipates as it did with this one. What happens to it after is anyone's guess......no question they all have a future and over time develop a history. One of the side benefits of making art is a longer mortality than it's maker and occasionally I see some off to a good start.

I guess I've sorted my number problem out writing this post. It's clear to me the number and timeline is second only to the work of art itself when it comes to the history of a painting.


 

Six years and 817 paintngs later

I wonder if it's true, you have to paint 10,000 paintings to master something like painting. At my current rate it would take 54 years....scary thought!

Not sure where I left off with my last post but spent some time at the easel revisiting an old subject and one of my first Greenhouse Salon juried paintings, 153 Venice Dawn Tide 9-30-09.  Since I don't follow competitions anymore I'm not sure the new owners continued the Greenhouse tradition or not. Competitions were fun at the beginning tho. However, size restrictions typically left me out unless I painted exclusively for a particular show, which I often did when there was more time. It was important starting out to find out how you stack up or what you need to improve on and always hoping to see your name on the list....good old days. Anyway, I always liked this particular painting but not the cotton canvas surface it was on. It was also a time spent searching for the "right" surface. So 6 years and 817 paintings later here it is, the 2nd version (original version below it)

NEW DAWN TIDES

970 Dawn Tides 33x30 oil on linen (8-5-15)

ORIGINAL DAWN TIDE

153 VENICE, DAWN TIDE 20X24 oil on canvas (9-30-09)

Looking at both, there might be a good case for plein air verses studio work. Both 970 and 153 were studio paintings but 153 was Alla prima at a time when I painted outside almost daily. It was also a direct result of another painted the day after a fresh Plein air experience on the Hill (below). All used the same sky reference taken  as the sun descended. There is a certain freshness about the plein air days.......later I found LED lighting helped bridge the gap in my studio work. Although until recently I made it a practice to go out occasionally for a refresher course, which worked well.

THE REAL START OF BOTH PAINTINGS

123 LIBBY SUNSET 20x24 oil on linen (8-4-09) 

Juried into 2009 OPA Eastern exhibit

124 Libby Terrace 8x10 en plein air (8-3-09)

125 Libby Terrace 8x10 en plein air (8-3-09)

WHICH REMINDS ME OF ANOTHER TWO USING THE SAME SKY REFERENCE

324 WILD PONIES 20X24 oil on linen panel (4-25-10)

677 JAMES FROM BELLE ISLE 30X30 oil on linen (6-27-12)

Turned out to be a good evening back in 2009. At least (5) paintings from one plein air experience reference and (1) sky reference........ might revisit the hill again soon!

Water, Water Everywhere

The Richard Stravitz Gallery in Virginia Beach has a new exhibit starting August 8th entitled WATER WATER EVERYWHERE in support of the volunteer Virginia Beach Rescue Squad. One could assume it's themed about the Beach but it's not totally true.

So my project today is...."Chuck what are you gonna take"? Well best start with one they asked for......the obvious. This painting speaks to the obvious beach but it's draw is perhaps more about it's size at 66x60.

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

 

851 OUR BEACH 66x60 oil on linen (8-9-13) 

Coincidentally almost a birthday painting to the exhibit....kinda cool! 

SOMETHING NEW

968 REDHEAD 20x20 oil on linen (7-20-15)

SOMETHING NOT SO OBVIOUS

 964 RED REEDS & BLUE AIR 60x48 oil on linen (6-1-15)

 SOMETHING TO GO WITH A BIG ONE

965 BLUE IRIS & MORNING MIST 30x30 oil on linen (6-6-15)

SOMETHING THEY HAVE

888 MORNING PROMISE 20x20 oil on linen (2-8-14)

&

893 SPRING WATERS 24x24 oil on linen (3-5-14)

&

919 SUNLIGHT & LILY PADS 44x40 oil on linen (8-25-15)

SOMETHING I LIKE TO PAINT

963 SUMMER MIST 56x48 oil on linen (5-18-15)

&

966 SUMMER SHOWERS 20X20 oil on linen (7-13-15)

&

967 OCEAN HEAT 20x20 oil on linen (7-15-15)

SOMETHING TO STOP WITH

427 PRECIOUS 14X11 oil on linen (12-31-10) 

&

425 CATCH ME IF YOU CAN 14x11 oil on linen (12-26-10)

All that's left is to find a small rental truck. One of the problems with big work it requires more than the family SUV to lug around. 

A redheaded beach toddler

Sunday: I decided to pick up my brushes and do some honest work for a change. There's a group show next month about water. I picked this little redheaded toddler and his mom playing in the sand as an add-on to my beach collection. After awhile you collect a few themed paintings like this that if put together tell a story. Have to look at that when I get a chance. 

9:15am time to start - this, like the last few will be a 20x20 linen canvas.

END OF DAY

968-1

 968-1 Redhead detail

Mom pretty much took the whole day and some parts turned out to be a challenge and a half !  I was tired by the time I got to the little redhead and really had to push to finish the transition outline edges on both.

Monday: I'm ready to go a second round with a fresh eye - and today the painting is dry thanks to mixing in Griffin alkyd white with my normal oils.

8:32am time to paint!

END OF DAY & COMPLETED PAINTING

968 REDHEAD & BEACH PLASTIC 20x20 oil on linen (7-20-15)

I pulled another one of three kids playing in the surf when looking for this one - in this case the little redhead was hard to beat. There's still time for the three amigos.....might try that between getting ready for the group show.

Three Amigos - girls in pink

REDHEAD is already available as a Giclee on Fine Art America  and my website under "Available Paintings".