Getting into it.
For this post, I've written a few sentences throughout the week as I painted. I've also attached some progress photos to show how it's all coming together. With that being said, the next couple posts may follow a similar pattern, but I'm not sure yet.
Since last week, I was finally able to get some paint on my canvas. As somebody who has only done one large scale painting, this was one of the most intimidating processes to start. I couldn't get enough paint and oil on my brush to cover the thing. As a very detail oriented artist, I tend to work very small naturally. I had to regroup a bit on how I would handle this. I've started by spotting in large amounts of color which will eventually be blended out into the correct intensity. I'm not sure if this method is considered doing an under-painting or not, because it won't be painted completely over. It's more of a wet-on-wet technique that allows me to just jump into it. It's not a very technical way of painting, I don't believe, but it's my favorite because of the colors that will seep through in the end product. It adds this translucency to the top layers and almost leaves an iridescent, pearly color on skin tones. I've concluded that this is one of those things I do which comes from my experience with colored pencils and my past hatred for paint. With colored pencils, I would lay down color and then go in with a white or colorless pencil and blend them out. This is the same way I work with paint, apparently.
When an image doesn't have a lot of color and consists mostly of muted grey colors, shadows are so hard. In the background of this particular painting, the image is made up entirely of shadows and highlights. There isn't any particular color to the image. I've struggled with this for the last week while painting. Today, I was able to make some progress. I found that starting with my lightest color (a light yellow ochre) and gradually darken the areas which will be in shadow. I added red, then blue, then yellow again. I used a softer brush to blend these colors because I want the shadows to be soft and playful. I added a small amount of black to the areas which needed to be darkened. This is a lot of tedious work for such a large canvas, but it will be worth it in the end.
Anyway, this post has been a bit short and boring, so I apologize to those of you who are reading. I'm really enjoying the process with this painting, but it will take me a little while to have anymore revelations on context and concept.
