Loading...Brian's Morning Newsletter
Monday March 1th 2010
Exploration of form, Brian's Hand Painted
Good Morning
More is wrong than right with the hand, but I needed to see if I could do it, and although I could have kept fiddling with it, I won't, it is what it is. In an attempt to understand skin-tones and acrylic paints I searched the Internet, and came away with a technique called glazing. Besides the link, I pasted the first page below, very cool stuff. I learned several new terms as well. Such as, paint opacity, ground, mediums
I'm tempted to quit on the Absinthe Dreamer painting, although I still like where it is going. A major obstacle for me is I don't want to do any detail which doesn't interest me. For the dreamer, this means the background. Anyway I added a floor, more color to the man's face, removed the waiter's head entirely, worked-over the column, and fiddled with both men's attire, oh yeah, the green fairy's face got a few dabs of white-green. Again, I am not too happy with any of the additional work, my favorite part of this picture is the woman's general proportions; the shading and lines of her shoulders, arm, and back. If I could even come close to doing a face, I'd try a nude.
Anyway, that's why I tried a hand. Oh, I forgot to mention, I had fun creating the fairy's hand, but it was so small I couldn't really do much with it. So, you may be wondering how or why I decided to paint a demon face if I was so into painting skin tones, and the human form. Ah, life in the woods is at times complicated, yet most of the time, not. Austin gave me this painting with permission to Jesso (White paint base) the canvas and reuse it. Coming back around to something I was talking about earlier, I like the stuff Austin had going on in the painting, and felt it could be helped with a center piece.
When I looked at this painting I saw flames, I wanted to paint a face, perhaps this painting could use a face of a person in agony, ya know from the flames. Sara was here and she showed me some tricks to drawing faces. We worked together on proportions and I went a little crazy toward the demonic. In my first painting of the hand, although you can't see it from the lousy picture I took, I had the skin-tone figured out close enough, well that is my hand, and I don't know if you've seen my hands, but they are the hands of a workman, so the color isn't off by all that much.
Painting is all about having fun, though Sara says, she tries to paint images she would like to have on the wall. So, yeah, I may hang the demon, for a while at least. The demon face was good for me because the few little techniques I've learned over the last few months actually worked, well I think they worked. I never would have guessed that I could have been satisfied with any of these paintings. What I am learning as I go, seems to be enough satisfaction. "So what, the nose doesn't look like right." I started with a fictional character, que no? Looks like the demon I saw, right?
What I am saying is we need to give ourselves a lot of latitude, after all the devil is in the detail.
P.S. thanks to Susan and Ron for sending me five 24"X30" canvases. I am working my way toward that size, and in reality, this is why I painted my hand, I'm thinking of doing a figure next. I love the nude from the back, with all the tone and structure.
Something along these lines
So there it is, another week and new month begun.
The world as we knew it, is as it was. go figure.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't be getting ready for el crapo hittin' el fano.
Smile, it suits your face.
Brian Rodgers
——–
P.S.S. uh oh, a new forum, well I've felt guilty becasue I haven't been to any of my regular nuts and bolts forums in months. http://www.artspan.com/community/index.php
-
Letters
I beamed when I saw your little pun. You're right. It certainly wood.You're a real tiger when it comes to new ideas. I wood be interested to see yew branch out and carve yourself a career in this field of expertise. I wood knot think there is a glass ceiling there.
OK, sorry about that. It's Friday so I suppose it's just end of the week delirium.
MB
————-
Brian observed -
"No matter how strong and nice looking a timber frame home is, it needs to be insulated to modern standards."
Straw bale.
It can be integrated with frame construction (the recommended method, if only to placate building inspectors,) it's a cheap, locally obtainable material and while the R-value per inch seems small, straw bale walls are a couple of feet thick, so that "R 1.45" actually translates to an overall R-value of 30 or better. With a lot less embedded fossil fuel energy than the high-tech materials, I bet.
And of course R-value is not the alpha and omega. For sustainable construction, thermal mass is also a consideration.
So a really good design might be straw bale with a south facing rock wall. Preferably with a solarium attached. Or straw bale home with a south-facing clerestory shining winter sun on a dark, masonry floor.
Lee
—
 |
Joe von Rodeck Invite sent: Feb 13, 2009 |
———-
Hey Joe, something is wrong with this, I can't see you in facebook
Brian
———
Painting Skin Tones
By Marion Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide
Creating Skin Tones by Glazing
"Emma" by Tina Jones. 16×20". Oil on Canvas. The painting was done by glazing, using thin layers of paint to build up into glorious skin tones.
Photo © Tina Jones
Glazing is an excellent technique for creating skin tones that have a depth and inner glow to them because of the multiple layers of thin paint. You can either mix your skin colors beforehand and glaze with these, or use your color-theory knowledge to have the layers of color mix optically on the canvas as each layer changes the appearance of what's beneath it.
Glazes are particularly good for working up subtle differences in skin tone or color, because each glaze or layer of paint is so thin and thus changes can be very subtle. Because each new glaze is applied over dry paint, if you don't like the result you can simply wipe it off.
For Further Information on Glazing See:
- Top Tips for Painting Glazes
- Painting Glazes in Oils or Acrylics
- Demo: Painting Glazes with Watercolor
———————-
How to Test if a Paint Color is Opaque or Transparent
How to Test if a Paint Color is Opaque or Transparent
Image: © Marion Boddy-Evans. Licensed to About.com, Inc.
Different pigments have different covering properties. Some are extremely transparent, barely showing on top of another color. Others are extremely opaque, hiding what's beneath. Considering this, and not just what the color is, can enhance a subject. For example, using a transparent blue in a sky gives a greater feeling of airiness than an opaque blue will. Compiling a chart of the colors you regularly use, such as the one above, shows at a glance how transparent or opaque a color is.
You Will Need:
- All the colors you usually paint with.
- Medium-size brush.
- Cloth to wipe the brush on.
- Jar of clean water.
- Pen to record the color names.
- Piece of white paper. If you've got about a dozen colors, you want a sheet about A5 size.
- Ruler (optional, straight lines aren't essential).
- Hairdryer (optional, for acrylics or watercolors).
How to Make a Chart:
- Sort out your colors in an order that makes sense to you, such as the color spectrum (rainbow).
- Mix up a little of each color. Paint a vertical stripe of each. Wait for them to dry.
- Paint horizontal stripes for all the colors, in the same order.
- If you're using a ruler, wipe the edge after each stripe so you don't contaminate the next one.
- Record the names of the colors next to each stripe.
Check the Results:
- Opaque pigments are dense and tend to block out other colors. This makes them ideal for subjects that are solid and heavy, such as tree trunks.
- Transparent pigments are light and airy, barely showing on top of other colors. This makes them ideal for atmospheric subjects such as a misty morning or diaphanous fabrics.
- Semi-transparent are somewhere between the two.
- With time, you won't have to refer to the chart, but will instinctively know the properties of a particular color. Until then, stick the chart up on the wall where you can see it while you're painting.
See Also:
Paint Tube Labels.
-- Visit the forum at: http://outfitnm.com/forum/ Read the BMN online at: http://outfitnm.com/category/brians-morning-newsletter Oh yeah, I turned the comments back on at http://outfitnm.com
Recent Comments