Butterfly In Shades Of Grey!Welcome to day 1 of the 'Butterfly Guy' painting diary. I'd already sketched in an image of the fella in raw umber, and noticed that his pose looked like the shape of a butterfly, as if he was there as part of a collection (yes, this is the way my mind works). So i'm thinking if he was pride of place then perhaps he should be joined by a whole host of other wee butterflies - but are they actually part of the collection, or are they there to try and save or release him back to the wild. I've been deliberating over a colour scheme for this piece - do I leave the guy tonally grey, or do I glaze him in colour and leave the butterflies in shades of grey.
That's the exciting part of starting a painting - you don't have to have a clear ending in sight, you can treat the piece as organic and just see where it takes you! Hope you're having a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra! Davy Face Values!This morning has been mainly set aside to block in the Duke's face. Again it's more about adding tones and greyscale values to his face rather than defining his features too much..yes, i'm trying not to be too finicky at this stage. I also gave his wee traffic cone hat a few strokes - I'm deliberating on using a 'mahl' stick to make the hat a little straighter at the edges...but then again, i'm kinda liking the 'weather-beaten' look of it so far. I've never actually painted a horse before, so i'm really enjoying the process.
Hope you're having a creative day, and I hope you're enjoying the progress of the old Duke and his horse so far. See ye tomorra! Davy Mirror, Mirror!I keep looking in the mirror today. Not for reasons of vanity, but , because i'm wary of the horse's nose going awry. I've told you before about how the mind plays tricks on you when you are painting, and tries to make you paint what you think you see rather than what you do actually see. The way around this is to either, flip the canvas and picture on its head and paint it that way, meaning that you are paying more attention to shadow and tonal values rather than a recognisable image, or, to do it the way i've been doing today and looking at the image in a mirror. I hope you can see the progression from yesterday's posting. I've still got a few more layers to go, and i'm finding it hard not to put in all the details rather than leaving this layer more 'blocky', but again, that's a discipline i'll need to practise.
Tomorrow, i'll maybe do a little more to the horse's head, and perhaps start to fine tune the grand old Duke himself, though i've got other pieces i'm working on that need some attention too. Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra! Davy Aye, Eye!Painting today has been a wee bit ..meh! (does that wavy hand thing). The good points are that I feel i've measured the eye better and adjusted other measurements too - moving the nose strap down slightly, starting to realign the nose, which had gone a bit Frankie Howard saying "neigh, neigh, and thrice neigh!" So, although, not a success, as such, I feel as if the painting is moving on a bit. It's just the second layer at moment, so 3 parts thinner to 1 part medium, hence i'm trying not to get the details too fine yet.
I've got the whole day to devote to it tomorrow, so i'll post again tomorrow night to bring you up to date. Hope you're having a creative day too! Davy Words And Pictures!If you've been following the blog you'll know that i've been setting aside more time for painting on canvas, and i've been sharing the pieces i'm working on in the form of 'Diary Of A Painting'. Here's a wee glimpse of 'Wallflowers', that i've been working on today. I'll go more into the backstory of this painting when I do the full 'Diary' blog, including why, like a few pieces, I started it last year, and it's only now that it's getting more of my attention.
One of the fantastic benefits of devoting time to painting is that i'm rediscovering my joy of listening to the radio whilst working - it really has been amazing, and i've been discovering quite a few wee gems on the BBC radio player. So far this week i've been listening to - HG Wells's 'A Dream Of Armageddon', Gerald Scarfe's 'Donald Gets Drafted 'The Void' Toby Jones's 'The Villian In Six Parts' 'Down With Skool - The Art of Molesworth' 'Don't Be Rude On The Road' Seriously, give your telly a break and tune in to the radio, there's some absolute brilliant programmes available. i'm already lining up 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?' For tomorrow! Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra, Davy A Tribute To Leonard Cohen.I'm enjoying posting about the progress of the Duke Of Wellington piece, so here's an up to date report on how i'm getting along with the "Tea And Oranges" painting too. I've just completed the wee grisaille as you can see. This is the third stage so far for this work. I had originally sketched each little component part of the composition as a wee 'quiz' back in July. When this sketch was finished I copied it as a rough outline onto canvas, and added in a tiny bit of shading with some burnt umber acrylic mix. You'll notice that I tend to use a ground canvas - meaning I don't paint against white. It helps for when i'm trying to get the tonal values correct. I'm looking forward to posting the next stage, where the piece should be a lot more colourful.
If you're wondering what the title of the piece means - it's a tribute to Leonard Cohen's song 'Suzanne'. "She feeds you tea and oranges, that come all the way from China" Have a creative day and i'll see ye tomorra! Davy Sketching, Painting, And A Load Of Brain Trickery!In my previous post in this 'Diary Of A Painting' series I told you that I was having difficulty in measuring the dashing Duke and his horse, and showed how I created a digital grid in the same dimensions as the physical canvas that I was using, to try and help me with the proportions. Here's the stage where he's at now. I've done a grisaille, or dead layer, which basically just means trying to sort out some tonal values. It's usually done using a grey tonal value scale. This layer is basically to set up the piece for the further layers to come. You can be as detailed as you like when doing a grisaille, but for this piece i'm just doing the basics. For me, as long as I kinda know where i'm going with it, i'm fine to leave it as rough as this. I should point out that even getting to this stage and having a grid, my brain was still trying to trick my eyes into seeing what i thought should be there rather than what actually was. A way to get round this is to draw/paint the composition upside down. Another trick that can help here too, is also to cover up areas on the canvas and just focus on the area of the grid that you are interested in, and each piece should still match up at the end. I then turned him back up the right way (to save him from getting a headache and shaded in a little detail in umber. Now that I've done the grisaille, I have to wait for that layer to dry before commencing the next. The great thing is that it gives me a chance to return to it with fresh eyes.
I can see him coming along and look forward to sharing some pics from his next stage. Thanks for following along so far! Davy Getting It All In Proportion!I was out taking some photographs a couple of Saturdays ago in Glasgow, and thought the grand old Duke was looking mighty dandy in his traffic cone hat. It's a Glaswegian tradition to give their favourite statues this exotic headwear, and I must admit, I don't think i've ever seen the Duke without it. I couldn't resist getting him down on canvas in his dashing pose. I started the Duke's painting today, and try as I might, I just couldn’t get the measurements right. I don’t mind if, at the end, i’ve consciously exaggerated some of the features, to bring my own style to it - well it is a painting rather than a photograph after all. For the start, though, I like to know that it’s roughly in the original proportions, and here's my workflow to achieve an initial digital sketch, ready to copy to the physical canvas. 1. Set up a digital canvas in the proportions of your physical canvas in the software programme of your choice.and import your original photo. Resize the photo on this 'image layer' to fill the canvas, play about until you are happy with it.
2. Take the opacity of the original image layer down enough that you can still see it. 3. Add a new layer on top. 4. On this new layer sketch/trace the outlines of your image - not too much tho, as it's totally just a simple line image we need. 5. Hide or delete the original image layer. 6. Change the background colour (so that the grid, in white, will show up). 7. Lay over the rule of thirds grid on top. In photoshop just press the crop button and it will appear. 8. You can either take a snapshot of this, or physically draw in the rule of thirds lines. For quickness I just take a snaphot. There you have it, a sketched outline which will correspond to your physical canvas - you'll obviously draw a 'rule of thirds' grid on your canvas too, and this will match up when you are sketching this outline onto it. Hope this helps! Davy |
Whit's he up tae noo?The blog posts of David Brodie, a Scottish artist based near Glasgow. Archives
October 2018
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