I have finally gotten the burnt umber underpainting done and established all the values in my painting! It took three weeks to get from blank canvas to this, but I think the rest is going to go faster. I have yet to paint the grisaille (grey scale) on top of this, and then I will glaze in colour after that (or perhaps do a mixture of both at the same time, depending on the object I am painting).
I ordered a Square Reader and it arrived this week. It has the ability to take credit and debit cards through my iPhone anywhere. I got it in case I make a sale at the Mt Tabor Art Walk show I’m in during the month of May. However, Square charges me 2.75% of the sale,which seems outrageous to me! Unfortunately, it’s the cheapest option out there to process cards on the go.
Still, coming along very slowly but I’m hoping to have it finished at the end of the week. I’ve decided to do the whole painting in burnt umber first, instead of just the skin, because that’s the way Caravaggio painted and I want my paintings to have more drama like his.
Well, it’s moving along very slowly, but at least it’s moving. I’ve decided to do the entire painting with underpainting, as did Caravaggio, so as to give it more depth and shadow.
It took three days to put in just the reference lines, but they are finally done and now I continue with the underpainting for ‘The Allegory of Facebook’ in burnt umber and medium.
I tried something new today; I used medium that I bought at the store instead of the medium I make myself. I did not like it. It turned gummy and hard to work with right away, even when I added more mineral spirits to it. Commercial mediums have drying agents in them so you have to work really fast.
I got a lot further on this today than I thought I would. It will take two full days more to complete it as the grisaille, and then the skin velatura will take two days. Also to complete: hair, clothes, and dog.
I’m doing another experiment and finished the outline over the weekend. The image is Nico imagining himself as a Roman gladiator in the arena. Any parts that are real (his skin, parts of his clothing, the dog, the floor) will be painted realistically in oil, while the parts he’s imagining (the arena, the extra dog heads, the mace, Nico’s breastplate) will be done roughly in oil pastel to resemble crayon. I’m looking forward to painting this!
