Tag: raven

October 24, 2016

Building a Painting, Part 3: The Ravens Have Landed!

“Needless to say, urgings by ravens are ignored at one’s peril.”
James D. Doss

In Part One and Part Two of Building a Painting, I explained how the wooden surface was prepared and why using an imprimatura to begin the painting on a color ground is a good idea. Then I shared how my version of the Nordic forest was designed, transferred and painted in gray and yellow. Next the words Hugin, Minnin, and Munninn were added. Now the urge is on to get those ravens in the painting, and like James Doss said, “Urgings by ravens are ignored at one’s peril.”

FullSizeRender 24 — Background painted and ready to go!

I envisioned the background as a painted theater backdrop with the ravens on stage, forming a triad, the yellow band from the landscape to be in the middle. I drew each bird individually, to scale on tracing paper, moving them around until they made a pleasing composition. Like baby bear’s porridge, just right!

A second piece of paper was laid on top of the birds, and another tracing was made so that all the birds are on a single sheet of paper. I’m having so much fun that I decide to go all out with the drawing. Once done, I realize that, Holy Audubon, after all that effort I can’t trace over the top of this drawing. So, what the heck–I do one more tracing, this time leaving out details. I also add a suggestion of a ledge or cliffs and a downed tree.

Can’t stop drawing! The ravens are now drawn on a single sheet of tracing paper.

I flip the drawing over to prep the tracing paper. But before I begin, I get the impulse to see how this reversed composition might work in the painting. Much to my surprise, I find this composition more to my liking and decide to go with this view.

The line drawing after it was reversed, resulting in a more pleasing composition.

To make the transfer, I rubbed the reverse side with graphite and then used odorless mineral spirits to dissolve the graphite. Once that is dried, the drawing can be flipped right side up, placed on the board and the image traced.

img_3371-2 — Detail showing using graphite on the reverse side of the tracing paper.

Almost done with the initial shading with graphite.

Using odorless mineral spirit to dissolve the graphite, making a transfer surface.

The line drawing is evident with the graphite on the back. Once traced, the image will be transferred on the board.

With the image now transferred on to the board, I can begin putting the first layer of paint on the birds using a blue-black hue, thinned with medium.

img_3384-10 — The ravens are beginning to appear, like magic!

Cliffs, rocks and the fallen tree are in place and adjustments made to the background. Time to let things dry before the next layer is added.

img_3446-2 — Here’s the first layer with the birds, cliffs and fallen tree.

Next in Building a Painting: The work continues with redefining the subject matter and adding details and fine tuning.

This Week in the Studio

I’ve been working on, you guessed it, another raven painting! This time I will use the raven as a stand-in for the mad monk, Savonarola, best known as the force behind the “bonfires of the vanities”.

fullsizerender-45

And, of course, there’s been the grand run-around– dropping off artwork in Pontiac, going to Frankfort for an opening reception and the like. To find out where my work is on display, visit News and Views or to see in the real, stop by River’s Edge Gallery in Wyandotte.

July 29, 2016

Gone Fishing

Benny Andrews said: ”I take a lot of vacations. Little ones, a couple of days. It’s like coming up for air, when I’m preoccupied with my work.”

The Studio Journal is on a short summer hiatus and will be returning soon. In the meantime, I am working diligently in the studio and classroom, painting, teaching, creating and enjoying, now and again, our hot and beautiful Michigan summer.

FullSizeRender 34 — Progress on “Thought, Memory and Desire”.

I just want to share this image with you as I continue making progress on my latest work. These “rogues” keep caw-cawing me to step up my pace and get things done! Jeez, I’m flapping my wings as fast as I can!

Thank you to everyone who has come out to view artwork at my various exhibits this summer. Your support means the world to me!

June 27, 2016

Build a Painting, Part Two: All Hail the Imprimatura!

When making a painting, only one thing counts: what you do next.

Walter Darby Bannard

In Part One on how to “Build a Painting”, I began where most building projects begin, at the ground level. I described my intention and motivation to complete a painting based on Odin’s Ravens, exploring notions of memory, thought and desire. Then I shared the techniques and materials that I used to transform a wood panel into a ready-to-use paint surface.

Using a short-napped roller to give an even texture. — Adding the ground to the sealed panel.

Now that the panel has dried to a bright white, and the surface has a subtle texture from using the roller, it’s time to paint the imprimatura, the first paint layer. This very thin underpainting is applied to the white canvas, almost like a stain. It provides a middle tone that helps establish value relationships from dark to light and it also provides a layer for light to enter the painting and refract back out. Traditionally, earth colors like sienna, umber and ochre are used. However, in many of my landscape paintings, I use a cadmium red as the imprimatura; the warm orangy-red hue adds a complement to the greens of the land and the blue of the sky, making the painting luminous.

The cadmium red imprimatura imparts a glow in this older work, “Michigan Skyscape: Emmet County, Summer”.

In the current painting, I hope to capture a similar glow. So onward with the cadmium red, thinned with Gamsol Solvent. This is only a thin layer; don’t be fooled by its intensity. (Oftentimes, I take a cloth to wipe off some of the paint.) There is something very visceral in covering the surface with RED and I always feel gleeful at this step!

In my mind, I can envision the black birds against a background of yellow sky in a soft misty gray Nordic forest. Before I paint the background, I sketch the forest so that I know approximately where to paint the various hues.

The drawing on tracing paper to determine the background composition.

For this layer, I mix a string of grays, cadmium yellow, a touch of cobalt blue and white paint. In order to build a painting that is stable it is necessary to work the paint layers “fat over lean”, so I modified the paint with Gamsol and a small amount of linseed oil. And away I go!

Yellow and grey, with a smidge of cobalt blue at the top.

Still visible is that cadmium red peeking through. Can you see it there, particularly at the bottom? At this point, I am enamored of the painting; it reminds me of one of the Great Lakes. I toy with the idea of completing another version of this as an abstracted lake-scape painting, even going so far as fetching another canvas from my storeroom. In the end, I remind myself to stay on track! Still, it haunts me.

Remember my idea to incorporate the words, Minnin, Hugin and Munin in the background? Using clear contact paper, I cut out the letters to use them as a mask and place them on the dried paint surface. I’m almost ready for the next layer.

The words are cut from clear contact paper to serve as a mask.

Next Up: Painting the forest and punching up the yellow in the background.

This Week in the Studio

A gift comes my way in the form of this fantastic fish bone, complete with the tail still intact. I can already imagine how I am going to use it in one of my mixed media pieces. Thank you Leah for knowing I would want this treasure!

I attended the opening of the Michigan Fine Arts Competition at the Birmingham-Bloomfield Hills Art Center on Friday and was floored to discover that I had garnered the President’s Award. The funny thing is that in the past I had entered this particular piece of work in the annual exhibit and had the same artwork REJECTED! Go figure!

January 22, 2016

Hitting the Hi-Whirl Button

“Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day & trying.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Every 15 weeks my routine goes awry in a big way. That’s when a new semester begins and, with the craziness that is life, it sometimes feels as though everything is being dumped into a blender and we’ve hit the hi-whirl button. The part-time teaching gig, with regular hours and scheduled days, serves as an anchor for the full-time job of studio artist. Hours that form the “professional” work are fluid in duration and focus, requiring a self-motivation to attend to tasks that the teaching, with its static parameters, doesn’t need.

Trust me, there are days when going to “The Office”, feels like work. It’s pulling on boots, packing the lunchbox, greeting the wintry chill inside the studio, confronting a painting in the not-going-great stage, and knowing that the Mountain of Need-to’s is waiting at home to be conquered. Without a sense of routine (“Tuesday, teach until 12, work at The Office until 6”), it’s über easy to make excuses for not dealing with the real work.

One resource I’ve found for guidance in these situations is The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. I read this slender volume every semester as a reminder of what it means to be a professional artist and to treat my time and commitment to my studio practice in such a manner. I recommend this book to every creative; and if you haven’t read it yet, I hope you do. I would love to know what you think of it.

Virgo Rising-detail — oil on board, metal leaf

Now back to this week in the studio. The winter routine is slowly getting established. I was able to clean up edges on the metal leaf on “Virgo Rising” (seen here and on Instagram.) However, by midweek I found the sides of the self-portraits were still too wet to handle and I was at a holding point with “Virgo”. That day I was determined to stay at the studio until I got something done. Grabbing pencil and drawing paper, I sketched a raven, part of an idea for my next best painting. After posting it on Facebook, my stats indicate that the “get something done today” drawing is a hit! I think I’m on to something that would never have happened if quit work early in the day. Stay tuned to see where this may lead!