Whitewash finished

Another couple of hours today and I’ve got this one finished. It’s not one of my favourites and far from my best watercolour but it was painted for our art club’s show in December with the theme “Sunlight and Shadows”. I’m not going to spend another 8 - 10 hours to do details. I’ll just say I was trying for a painterly look. LOL. The photo isn’t very good and you’ll have to take my word that it looks better in real life. Tomorrow I’ll get it waxed (covered with a wax medium to protect it).

Step 4

I finally got back to this. Three days of Xmas baking caused an interruption. I’ve added a tree on the left (still needs to be a darker vale) and worked on the whole wash line. The photo is more yellow than in real life.

Step 3

This is going much slower than I thought. I think I have the shadows right but it dries too dark or too light. I’m missing my oil paints. LOL Still quite a bit to do on this and I have to lift some of the shadows already there. This isn’t a great photo, there’s a blue cast not there in real life.

Whitewash step 2

I finally did some more on this watercolour. After concentrating on oils the last few paintings I’ll have to learn watercolours all over again. LOL I’ve darkened the background and started the first washes on the clothes. It looked like this painting would be simple but the subtle changes in colour of the shadows will take time. I’m also adding trees on one side to break up the flat division in the background.

Whitewash started

Today I started the first washes of the second painting for our art club’s show in December. It is watercolour and shows a clothesline of white washing backlit by the sun. The composition is fairly simple but getting the transparent shadows on the clothes will be the challenge.

This is just the first, light washes and needs a few more glazes of colour before I can even start on the clothes. This layer was just to get the white paper covered to make it less intimidating and to finalize the composition.

Curiosity finished!

After a final 3 hours working on it this morning I’m calling the painting finished. It’s as much as I’m going to do on it without getting into so much detail I’m painting every hair. I had to stop myself from going too far.

The photo has light reflections on it and patchy shiny areas which is normal with oil paint. It will all be  evened out once it’s varnished just before December (keeping my fingers crossed it’s dry by then).

So onwards to my next painting which will be watercolour but it will have to wait until after Thanksgiving.

Step 13

I worked almost completely on the hair today. I’m finding it more difficult than the rest trying to work out the patterns, colours, and values. I’m really having a hard time trying to get the right colour for the brightest reflections. Another couple of days working in this area then going over the whole thing correcting tiny details.

Step 12

I can see the end in sight. Today I finished the shoes, corrected details on the suspenders, tweeked the colours in the ear, corrected the darkest shadows where he touches the cement, and then started figuring out the layout of the hair and putting down base colours. Just the hair to finish now and I hope it will be done by Friday.

Step 11

This morning I worked on the shirt stripes shading the folds to make them more 3 dimensional. It is now too wet to do the final details so tomorrow I’ll work on the hair.

Step 10

This morning’s focus was the cement in the background. It had to be finished before I can finish the shirt and hair because the edges in the foreground have to be finished over the background. It took a little figuring but finally decided on a sponge to apply the paint. I just wanted the impression of cement, not details to take focus away from the main subject. I also adjusted the water a little.Tomorrow’s plan is more work on the shirt.

Step 9

This morning was all about the stripes. I’ve made the decision to change the plaid shirt to stripes. It will be easier and the horizontal stripes didn’t add anything to the composition. I’m finding that oils are not as easy to control and not as accurate as watercolour which is surprising.

I’ve laid in a base colour on all the stripes and once they dry I’ll go over them with shadows and highlights. While they dry I’ll start work on the cement next.

Step 8

I spent most of today’s session working on the hand but I also started blocking in the hair to decide on colours (non of what’s there right now will be seen in the final painting). I started layering colours on the shadowed cement and I will be trying a different technique once that dries. Tomorrow I’ll be working on the stripes again.

Curiosity step 7

This morning I started blocking in the hand, adjusted colour on the face, and did a little bit on the stripes. I’m going to try and do some more later.

Step 6

Today I used my iPad to see details in the reference photo instead of looking at a printed photo. I corrected a lot of things on the pants, put a base layer on the shoes, and added the darkest shadows where he touches the cement. Still a very long way to go.

Curiosity step 5

This morning was for concentrating on the pants. I think they are done, at least until corrections at the end. I did a little on the shirt stripes but ran out of time to do more today.

Step 4

Today I worked more on the shirt and pants. The hand was still too wet to work with.  The shirt is going to take the longest.

Step 3

I really have to start daily (when possible) work on this to have it dry for our art club’s show in December. Today I worked at the top of the painting on the water, a little on the face and ear, added one colour in the stripes of the shirt, started a background wash on the hand, and started a background wash on the pants. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to handle the cement.

Step 2

I’m finally back at work on this one. I’ve had family visiting, meetings for our local art club, and a quick trip out of town yesterday. I have to get working on this so I’m going to try and work on it every couple of days to allow layers to dry between.

I painted about 3 hours today and changed a lot. I redid the cement bench colours. Right now it’s just the base colours and I still have to add layers of colour on top. I started on the face, pants, and started figuring out some of the stripes on the shirt. The upper background is going to be water to make sense to people who don’t know where this is but again, it’s just the background layer and will be blurry and lighter when finished.

New Painting - Curiosity

I've finally started another painting. It is another painting of a grandchild but I'm doing it for our art club's show in December with the theme "Sunlight and Shadow". It is 12 x 24" and is in oil. The reference photo was taken by Jo Haughton, a wonderful photographer in Toronto who took the photos at my son's wedding.
The photo is of my grandson looking through a crack in a cement bench before the wedding. It suited the theme of the show perfectly and I couldn't resist painting it (with her permission).

The first image is of the drawing and the next is the first step in the painting. I'm mostly playing with colours and techniques to get the right feel of the cement bench. I have a few different ones here and will have to make a decision about how detailed to make it as well as the colours so this might change completely in the future. I just needed to get something on the canvas to make some decisions.