Golden Retrievers Commission
Commission, 2017, oil on canvas, 16 x 20″
Painting a Golden Retriever
This dog was painted in three stages; first I painted in the greys, browns, and raw sienna that make up the shadows. Then I used naples yellow to fill in a lot of the fur (you can see that I have started it on the ear in the second photo), and then finally I dabbed pure white into many highlighted areas where the sun hits.
Painting Pool Water
I’m doing a rush job on this and working the weekend – it’s going alright, considering I’ve never done water or landscape before. For the sky, I painted in the blue and clouds, then let it dry. Today I roughed in the trees, and tomorrow I will finely paint in all the leaves on top of that. For the water I did a wash with the dogs’ legs and greenish-grey base for the pool, then I painted in the reflections as glazes on top of that. I blended by whipping a small brush horizontally across the reflections to make it look more like water, and today I added a layer of pure oil on top to make it shiny.
Next Piece
So, after I finish my commission I will move on to this next painting entitled ‘The Allegory of Facebook,’ which is a portrayal of the Left and the Right, and the political divisiveness in today’s society. Friday night’s photo shoot worked out really well, despite a few setbacks. I think this shot is going to work out quite nicely with a few tweaks from other shots. All the lines, drama, and dynamism I was looking for fell into this one.
When Out of Comfort Zone
I’m working on a commission this week of two dogs in an outdoor pool. I usually set up photos in interior spaces, but this one was given to me to paint, so I’m a little out of my comfort zone painting landscape and water. Nonetheless, it has to be good, so before I paint it on the commission, I do a little experiment on a small canvas to make sure my technique is adequate.
Barely Making the Deadline
It’s so close to being done! There are a lot of little touch up things, but it’s close. I checked my deadline for the Art in the Pearl application and it’s on Wednesday, so I hope I can get this and another painting done by then.
Painting Reflections in Tabletop
Yesterday I painted in the tabletop by putting in black for the shadows along the hands and dishes and then by painting a burnt umber glaze all over. The table remained rather flat, so today I painted on the sheen of the varnish on the wood with a white glaze. I marked in a little bit of colour in the reflections, such as the blue under the beer can.
Painting More Patterned Fabrics
I did this large roll of fabric “robes” in two steps in two days. As mentioned yesterday, printed fabrics can be tricky, depending on the colours and design. Since this has a light base colour, I painted it in first with a yellow glaze, and then today I painted on the pattern with different coloured glazes. My brushstrokes were very loose and fast, but a pattern still comes through when you step back and look at it. I’m not going for photo-realism in my paintings, even though the faces closely resemble the sitters.
Painting Printed Fabrics
Painting printed fabrics is actually quite tricky and each needs to be approached in a different manner. This one has a white base, so painted it first as if it were a white towel by marking in the shadows with grey/brown (first photo), and then I added a white glaze to even out the colour (second photo). I waited for it to dry and then I carefully marked in the stripes in different coloured glazes (third photo). I used thin glazes so that the dark folds would still come through, giving shadow and volume to the towel. For the stripes reflected in the darker mirror, I added more brown to the same glazes.
Painting Glass
Painting glass is a lot easier than one might suppose; I started this one by painting in what is behind the jar (in this case the beige blanket, a thumb, and blue jeans. When the background was dry, I made a light grey glaze using titanium white, ivory black, and my medium comprised of 60% linseed oil/40% mineral spirits. I painted the entire jar with glaze, then marked in the highlights with pure white. Voila!
