Recent progress

Fast forward with some updates

Here are some shots taken since Thursday night and over the weekend.

Detail

Green!

Adding a bit more color here.

Paint!!!

Working dark to light and back again, I've started to create the color masses. At this point the colors are put down fairly thick and in large swatches. After most of the area is covered, I create smaller shapes that bridge the colors and then repeat this to create form. The process is much like carving a statue out of a block of stone; you carve out the general shapes first, and then you refine these until you have the finished, polished sculpture.

( I've noticed that the little camera on my iPod is making the colors, brightness and everything really saturated. I'll post a photo taken with my Canon later today. 3:37 PM, 2/24/2011)

Blacker than black

I just finished painting all of the black areas with a mixture of Prussian blue and alizarin crimson. This mixture actually creates a color darker than any black pigment since the combination of the two semi-transparent colors absorb more light than any of the opaque black pigments available. Next I'll be working on the painting the secondary dark colors with earth pigments such as umbers and ocres and cobalt.

Done Drawing!

The underpainting is finally completed! Now comes the very long and arduous process of actually painting the image. Working dark to light, the next couple weeks will entail late nights in the studio and approximately 3 pounds of coffee in addition to the several pounds of paint that will actually be applied to the canvas.
Yet despite all this, it's normally at 2 in the morning when I find myself in the most relaxed state of calm with a paintbrush in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

Taking form

I'm about halfway done with the underpainting. The easel has been elevated with 2x4s (the easel is not strong enough to hold it up on its own!) to the approximate height that it will be hung to both help visualize how the viewer will see it and to make working on the bottom easier. However, this means the top of the canvas is now seven and a half feet off the floor, necessitating the need to create a short platform for when I begin painting. Thankfully I painted the top while it was still on the floor.

Drawing

After a few snow days, I'm finally starting to draw the composition. I'm using a mixture of cobalt blue and mars black; being the only black that dries rapidly. This drawing will take several hours, but once I'm finished I'll be able to begin painting immediately.

Ready to Paint!!!!

The canvases are all gridded, aligned and secured together. Next comes the fun of blowing up the image to this massive scale. This technique is the same that the renaissance masters employed, and is older than the actual act of painting, having been used to scale things up for a few millennia. Each grid square is 5 inches, and painted on with cobalt blue and mineral spirits. Cobalt blue is used because of it's transparency; meaning the light lines will disappear into the next layer of paint. Painting it on with the mineral spirits also slows the drying, and so in addition to the color disappearing, it will actually rewet and melt into the next layer, allowing me to get a few hours of sleep before I begin painting.

Loaded on the Easel

Somehow I never thought my easel would be inadequate for a job.... Ready to start gridding!!!!

Source image

The source image has been adjusted to take into account the new borders and a .75" gap between each canvas panel.

Gessoing!

Edges Painted

The canvases are painted and ready to be taped and gessoed. I should begin drawing and underpainting tonight.

Canvas cutting

Stretchers are finally built!!!

I finally got the stretchers built! I'll post some of the process a little later. Now they need to be sanded and have the canvas stretched over them. I'm hoping to start painting by Friday.

Underpainting

The underpainting is finally complete. This value painting will allow for the colors to be laid down without the influence of the white background. A perfectly white background makes every color look darker than it actually is. This is called 'simultaneous contrast' and is what makes the two grey rectangles look like different colors even though they are infact the same grey color in the example below:

Canvas Preparation and Penciling

Now that the canvas is stretched, the borders are all painted in grey.

The borders than get taped off. I won't see them until the painting is finished

I paint over the tape in order to keep any of the white gesso from seeping into any of the cracks.

The entire surface is prepared with 3 coats of gesso that are sanded between each coat. The gesso is used to keep the oil from seeping into the fibers, and without enough gesso, this can still happen. If this should occur, the canvas will actually rot away in a few decades, and the painting will fall apart. The gesso also smooths the surface, making it nicer to paint on.

The outline of the painting has been drawn onto the now dried canvas using a blue pencil. the reason for the blue is because it won't affect the color of the paint that goes on it like regular pencil lead would. It also washes away easily with mineral spirits since its made out of a material different than graphite.

Blank canvas

February 9, 2011

The first step in the construction of a painting is always the canvas. This is the underlying structure and is designed to withstand the forces of the stretched canvas. My stretchers are specifically designed to combat twisting and bending of the stretcher which normally occurs with store-bought canvases. I wait for the glue to cure for a few hours before I start stretching the canvas over it.