Working on This Weekend-12/21/2014

Mainly worked on two paintings this weekend, Three Pink Roses and the Winter Deer Skull.

Winter Deer Skull, oil paint on panel, 16x20 inches, unfinished.

 I went back to the shadow areas of the skull and
 added a light blue layer, with some texture. Then I redrew the fence wires and the cracks in the skull with Raw Umber, too.

I originally wanted to do only glazes of pure colors on this painting, but that isn't giving me the results I want, so today I tried working wet in wet on the background grasses. It worked really well, but it will be tedious to get all the background area covered. Galkyd tends to get sticky and messy very quickly, within an hour, so that means I can only cover small areas at a time, with small batches of mixed colors.

Three Pink Roses, oil paint on panel, 8x10 inches, unfinished.
 Mostly got the background out of the way here, now I can work on the fun part, the flowers! I swear painting backgrounds is like eating your veggies before the good parts of dinner. The first layer had already been done on the background, so this layer was easier to apply and adjust. I made three shades of grey, using a dark Torrit Grey from a few years ago, plus pure white and the grey for the darks; and added color all over, working from lightest to darkest with the same little filbert brush, and then blended it all with a soft brush. After the blending I cleaned up the stems and flowers with a clean brush dipped in mineral spirits.

Geraniaceae Seeds

I have a hard time deciding whether to call these pictures drawings or paintings, but it was an fun experiment, no matter the name. I transferred pencil drawings from photos that I took, painted in the background, shaded in the pencils drawings, painted over the drawings with thin washes of acrylic inks, and then scratched out highlights with a knife. I worked back and forth between the pencil and ink and scratching out whites, Claybord* is great for that because the surface is smooth and deep enough that it can be scratched off a few times without scratching through.

Geranium Seed #1,  pencil and acrylic ink on Claybord, 8x8 inches, 12/2013.

On two of the pictures (#1 and#3) I used multiple layers of acrylic ink to fill in the background, which worked pretty well, it just took a few layers to get even coverage. For #2 I tried acrylic paint, and it wasn't as easy to work with as the ink, it chipped in places when I scratched out the details. The paint also left lines that had to be smoothed carefully, so I'll probably stick with ink in the future.

Geranium Seed #2,  pencil with acrylic ink and paint on Claybord, 8x8 inches, 12/2013

The shine of the pictures made them hard to photograph, I tried several times and had no luck, even going all out and building a black light box didn't help.  Then I realized that I could scan anything small enough to fit on the scanner bed, so I tried it and had great luck.

Geranium Seed #3,  pencil and acrylic ink on Claybord, 8x8 inches,  4/2014.

The seeds are something in the Geraniaceae family, I'm not sure exactly what species because I didn't take pictures of the plants themselves. The seeds were stuck in my socks after hiking at one of the local parks, so I brought them home and took some pictures to work from. They're common Texas wildflowers found near San Antonio, Texas.  The seeds in this family spring out as they dry, launch away, and stab into to things to get themselves dispersed. The amazing thing that I found out when trying to identify them is that the coil changes with the humidity, getting longer when wet and shorter as it dries, and will screw the seed into the ground.

  

I did a little experiment by tracing a dry seed on a piece of paper, soaking it on water and seeing if it expanded any. Turns out that it did expand, after a few minutes, and within half an hour it was back to the original shape. 

Geranium Seed #1,  detail.

Geranium Seed #3, detail. 

Geranium Seed #3, detail.

For more information on the way the seeds explode out and bury themselves, see this paper:
Evangelista D; Hotton S; Dumais J. 2011. The mechanics of explosive dispersal and self-burial in the seeds of the filaree, Erodium cicutarium (Geraniaceae). Journal of Experimental Biology. 214: 521-529. 

*I am not compensated in any way by Ampersand, I just love their products. 

Toy I

Toy I, with the model.

I wanted to try some still lifes based on my favorite colors, Prussian Blue and Alizarin Crimson, with little toys and items from around the house. This is the first finished picture in that series, it features one of my favorite model horses that I've had since I was little.
This painting was done on canvas, but I wanted the bottom white part smooth, so I built it up with many layers of gesso and sanded it smooth. After that was smooth I poured on Prussian Blue mixed with Galkyd and let it form the drips.

Toy I, oil painting on canvas, 12x24inches, finished, 2013.

GIF of Toy I, showing some of the layers that went into the horse.

GIF of Toy I, showing the layers that went into the whole painting.

Toy I, with the model.