I often think that I'll get some time to paint over the weekend, but many things compete for my time. Many good things. This weekend I needed to help my wife steam off some wallpaper for a room we want to convert to an office and guest room. I then cut and installed quarter round at the baseboards to cover the gaps left when we removed the carpet. There was a good hard wood floor underneath. Grand kids are coming this Thanksgiving, so now is the time to get this done. Since things took longer than we thought, no oil painting happened. But I was determined to paint. So I went in to my day job Monday morning, took care of a few things and then took the afternoon off to paint. I had 3 and a half hours of uninterrupted time and made good progress. Now I am more likely to paint in shorter spurts of time.
I am trying to do a grisaille (French for gray picture) underpainting for the first time. This helps me focus on the details without worrying about the color. Later I will add color glazes. So this was a learning process for me in two ways. I learned that I paint more quickly and focused in the grisaille method. Secondly, I don't have to wait for a time when I have all day to paint to make good progress. This may free me up to move forward more rapidly in the future. I'm also working larger. I have much more control over the details this way. The finished piece will be 42" X 62".
The piece will be called Soar. I greatly admire dancers with their grace and body control. Their abilities are so great that they seem to be free of gravity at times. Hence the title Soar. This grace and control comes from much disciplined training. It is the same with art. I don't believe that art is magic, although when executed well it might seem that way. Good art has a foundation of lots of drawing and painting. The stronger the foundation, the better the artist can execute his or her vision.
Here are larger portions of the full painting. I can hardly wait to get to the sky and clouds.
I guess I never posted the progress on this drawing. I added more detail to the hair and back. I have since set it aside for a while and have begun the preliminary painting on a large oil on panel. I'll share that as it progresses as well. I always try to keep my hand in doing art work, whether drawing or painting, but many good things compete for my time. I am currently preparing to share in a two-day workshop about matters of faith. This is another passion of mine. So you see why many good things keep me from doing art. I can assure you that I am never bored.
I took a break from the drawing of my dancer friend to "play" with another image from that same photo session. This is straight photo manipulation using two photos I shot and a scan of cicada wings. Julia's expression of joy led me to think in other-worldly terms. There is also some energy transferring down her arm which may lead to another image using this as the base. I hope you can join her on her flight of fancy.
I've made some progress after I transferred the graphite sketch I began on Drawing Day to some Stonehenge drawing paper. So I didn't come anywhere near completing a drawing on that day. But at least it got me started. I plan to take my time and color in many layers of different colors before I consider this done. This is a detail (about half) of the full image. The dancer's arm extends to the upper left hand corner all the way to her fingertips.
