The Process: Day 5

Somewhere around the year 1995 I did an artist residency in Milledgeville Ga. This was where Flannery went after finding out she had Lupus, and lived on her mothers farm Andalusia. I lived and worked at the John C. Marlor Art Center. While I was there, a symposium of Flannery's works was held at Georgia College which drew people from all over the world. Milledgeville is also the site of the state asylum, so its fitting that Flannery would draw upon weird country people to play out her morality tales of redemption, salvation and grace. I do feel some degree of pressure to present this great author correctly and to have it be worthy of her. 

I thought I might start todays post with a shot of the studio. Its a wreck. Tomorrow I have to rearrange so that I can hang the painting on the wall. I need to look at it from a distance more now. I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked. Koby had a rough day. The dogs were restless so we played in the creek; I threw sticks for them and they chased each other until Koby ran through a yellow jacket nest. Im ashamed to say it was funny to see the moves she made; I slapped all the ones still stuck to her down. July and August are horrific here. It is buggy hot and humid.

First thing I did was dry brush the water and add the crutches. I paint them fully as if they are going to show and then as I worked on the water they became less clear. I am very happy with how they look now; not so clear but more of a suggestion.

I am not entirely happy with the water and will have to work on it yet again. Im almost embarrassed to say how much time I put into it and not be fully satisfied. Self doubt has started to creep in...typical in any piece that is a stretch. I couldve done one of my layered pieces that is bright and fun. This is a piece that is about something more than a decoration so it is harder.  But I do love being with Flannery every day!

Another awkward stage. I worked on the arms and will need to redo the peacock feather under the hands. Here you can see how the crutches look in the water. I am very happy with that. The photo doesnt show the water well - that worries me a little as I have to submit photos to get in the show. I will work on it some tomorrow. I also touched up Flannery's face a little tonight...just took down the shadow on her chin and I think it softened her face a bit.

Layered peacock feathers. I will tighten them up a bit later and make some of them bright areas of light for  contrast. I did a test near the bottom of the painting and it looks good.

This where I left it for the evening. Does it look like much happened? Not really!

Tomorrow: more water work, finish the peacock tail and wing, refine arms, and start the devils. I actually need to finish the devils. Sunday needs to be a day where I can just finesse a painting that is basically finished. Have a terrific weekend everyone. Thanks for tuning in.

The Process: Day 2

Day 2. Started late around 1 PM and that is not good. The light is best from 10 - 4 and I should never be anywhere else during those hours. But my neck was extra tight so I walked up the mountain and over the other side for an extended 2.5 hour hike. It was good -but oh so humid. I was soaked through when I got back, took a freezing shower, had a salad with my heirloom Green Zebra tomatoes and hit the studio.

I started by adding another background layer of goldens and reds. I lightened the cone of grace that Flannery is standing under. I just needed to get the gist of how that will look so i can figure out the overall color balance. The cone of grace will need several layers to hold the detail of drops that will come later.

I could not live without Golden Fluid Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold; it is the most indispensable color. QNAG adds a warmth to any color it overlays. It will take a lot of paint (a LOT of paint) to get the background where I want it but that can come later. Today I needed to deal with Flannery's face and that was what most of today was about.

I did the classic green shadow underpainting. Frankly, I havent done this since college. This is the kind of thing that can get me panicky and abandon the process, but I worked through it and all the weird awkward stages to follow. Note how the drawing is kind of skewed and asymmetrical. I tend to leave those lines and fix them as I paint; I try not to have the image be too perfect because its this very wrongness that gives a final painting its unique character. (I think)

I painted about 4 layers of different colors to create the flesh tone of her face. You cannot just squeeze out a tube of flesh colored paint and call it a day because it just doesnt have any life to it. I use a mix of flat and slightly shiny paint - it looks weird now but later when I varnish the painting all the layers will "come up" and it will look deep. Rich. Make sense? I mean that you can look down into the painting and see all the layers but it still reads as a fluid surface. See how crooked her eyes are? I'll fix that in a minute. Its hard to see the importance of that halo of lighter yellow until I get her dark hair painted. Right now the whole thing looks pasty and bland. Note how deep into the lines of the Flannery drawing I take the background color. That is critical for nice clean edges. Painting is a discipline where you are always thinking back to front and trying to plan for later by laying a foundation early.

Flannery's hairline is to die for; the illustrator in me loves the lack of ambiguity. You just do not see this kind of hair anymore. I really like how the left (our left) looks - Im going to have to fix that right side but its going to take some real skill to overcome that dark with the light. I used a ruler to measure the distance from hair to shoulder line and its still off. So thats something to be corrected as well.

The face is very rough here but I know that the super refined work is days away. I just need to have her look back at me for the rest of the painting because the connection with her eyes is what every other thing that follows has to sync up with. Literally, the peacock, the pond, the trees, the leg braces, the cloud - all of it must be in service to those eyes.

* describing this process is a challenge*

There is barely enough room for me and the board (40x40) and the paints to fit in here. But both Trout and Koby tend to lay in here all day. Its too hot and humid for them. They mostly lay around in the summer. I took them to the waterfall on the break around 4. Some times the chickens come in too but they have a tendency to fly up and land in paint. I just wave my dry rags around at them and out they go.

I added the eyebrows and that was very important to the look of Flannery. That mouth needs work - not alot though. I couldnt have her smiling a big wide smile so this is the face I am going with. I need her face to look a bit more relaxed and that is going to mean doing something with the smile line shadows. But not much! Too much is too much and letting go is as important a skill as any other aspect of painting. Im happy with the dress detail. I was working from a vague photo so I am sort of guessing here - the vibe is about right and that is good enough.

I thought about my mom while painting this. She was the one that taught me about how the upper lip is darker due to the shadow and that light hits the middle of the lighter lower lip. Its absolutely true. She was a good artist, and drew women's faces beautifully. Most of the day I was trying to figure out how I was going to work in the leg braces that Flannery no longer needs. In my original drawing I thought it might go something like this:

How's this for an impressive preliminary drawing? grherhahahaha! I saw her tossing the braces away and then I noted how damn big a peacock is. You are not going to stand in water holding a bird that heavy in one arm. Not even in my fantasyland. Now I am kind of seeing a Frida Kahloesque device where they might be bound in ribbon or something sort of floating away...we'll see.

This might give you an idea of how large the piece is. It is hard because typically, I spin my paintings around and work from every direction. I paint upside down a lot. Its a great way to work for some reason I can see certain things more correctly that way. But not being able to move the painting around is making it a bit more difficult. By Thursday, I will have to get it on the wall because standing back away from it will be essential to getting the final work right. Im not sure I can stand back far enough. Everything has to "read" from a distance and in case the work is hung higher. (This presumes I actually get IN the show)
I will probably have to move outside which is problematic as bugs fly into the paint all the time when I do.

Flannery is standing in water so I really dont have to paint her legs very well. Yay! I just have to have the suggestion of them beneath the water color. Same goes for how the part of her dress is submerged - it should just read as slightly darker than the water color. Koby's paw print is still very visible, but it will disappear by tomorrow. This is the end of the work day - its getting too dark and the lights make too much reflection which makes it hard to see what the paint is doing. Natural light is the only way to go. It really is.

You can get an idea of how that works here although this is just the first of may layers. This water will have a lot of life: it will have concentric circles radiating from Flannery as well as light waves and tonal variations. The water will take hours. Hours and hours. And I need that dress to look floaty, so that is an engineering problem for tomorrow.

I put up a little motivational poster for myself. Like I said, Ive won a prize in this show before, but I would like to win a MONEY prize. But even if I dont, Im kind of stoked that I am painting a real person -however stylized. I havent done that in a long time and its a fun challenge.

Tomorrow: making beautiful water, more back ground, and laying down the peacock's first layer. Thanks for joining me!

on painting: in the night studio

Painting is not the same as illustration. painting is more than image, it is also surface. it has the weight of object; it has presence. for me illustration is to draw something and then fill it in with color and refine details with a mind toward clarity, because it is so often intended to be reproduced. in some ways, painting is about destroying the original drawing and trying to not refine so much. i seldom make a larger acrylic painting on canvas, so i usually ruin the first one remembering how to do it. if i stay focused, by the time i start the second, i am more on my game, have some flow, and have figured out the paint again. I am about halfway finished with the fox painting.

unless you paint seriously everyday, it is difficult to make anything worthwhile. it is like you have to teach yourself how to do it again. i talk with another painter almost daily and we agree that the awkward stages paintings tend to go through are terrifying; it looks like it won't come together and you have to fight your desire to ditch.

its in the problem solving of creating a composition with a pleasing marriage of order and complexity that a path opens up. i paint flat on a table which makes it easy to get too "precious" with the visual elements because i am too close to it. a painting needs to be hung up and stood back from and looked at again and again so you see it in totality and how it looks in space. i am reminded of some photographs of mark rothko sitting before his work waiting for the painting to tell him what to do next. if anything. with the thrasher painting on the left, i went too far, though it has some cool sections where other birds morph in and out of negative space. but i over worked it and have to start a third painting now.

i have been working on these for the entire week, staying late at night alone at the warehouse. i listen to ambient chill internet radio from france or the "drone zone" and i keep my loading dock open until the bugs, drawn to the light, end up embedded in wet paint. when i go home, i am still with the painting(s) and have trouble falling asleep. i really just want to go back to work.

im writing this post because its clear im not going to have these finished by tomorrow. the first painting was the brown thrasher and it has gotten too busy and "illustratey", though there were some important discoveries that i could apply to the second painting, the fox.

I remembered how much i like controlled drips and lots of sheer layers over textured backgrounds i lay in by scraping paint dipped cardboard across the canvas. i also like to etch into wet paint and overlay that area which allows the new color to seep into the grooves.

It is difficult to make a good painting; one that really sings with vitality and is true to my vision of how it should be. It is the hardest thing i do as an artist. painting is a spiritual path in that you dont know what it is you are searching for, but when you find it you know it is right and true. and it is a moment of true contentment. its a time free of anxiety that is filled with the delight of creation.

but it cant be rushed. so if you are reading this my friend, i only have one of the two (almost) ready.

(i did manage to finally finish the two panels below)