Changing Pace

Normally this blog is all politics, all the time. However, for a limited time I will be blogging about the progress I am making (or not making, as the case may be) with the painting I have been commissioned to do. Just for a little while, to help me maintain some modicum of progress on it. So, without further ado I am still in the second phase of the painting, a reproduction of a Goya, Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zunica.

The original looks like:


And I am at this point:


Aside from some coloration differences and glare problems with the camera - you'll notice some other differences as well. I have to work on a 20" by 24" canvas, to fit a specific frame as requested by my customer. So my image is cropped, quite a bit. There are also some color differences right now, as I am working from a print, and not the original - although no digitally reproduced work accurately represents the color scheme, I will work faithfully from the example that was designated for my use.

I am also very much in the color blocking stage, you can even still see some of the underpainting in the areas of the animals, and belt. For anyone who does not paint, or has not followed the traditions of painting, when one works in oil it is common to use an underpainting, or a thin layer of oil paint underneath the actual painting to change the overall tone of the painting.

Oil paints are somewhat transparent, or translucent - as light is allowed to go through the paint, and will reflect off of the oil primed white canvas beneath, reflected back through the oil colors on top. Compared to acrylic paints, and acrylic gessoed canvases, which do not reflect the light back through the paint because of the elastic nature of the paint. (When the paint settles into the crevices of the canvas, it absorbs the light, rather than reflecting it as the hardened smoother texture of oil paints do).

I chose a rather cool tone for an underpainting, a mixture of Prussian blue, white and a little bit of burnt sienna. The print, up close has an over all cool tone to it, so I used my best judgment and went cool. It seems to be working well for the moment.

Issues that I will be addressing tonight are the animals, the child's head, and some basic proportion problems that arose once the paint was laid down. Once that has been worked up appropriately, I will return to the background and foreground (giving the paint enough time to harden at least a little) and start working in some brighter colors, get the dappled effect that occurs all over the darn thing, and try to get the best coloration that I can.

Tomorrow, I might just post another picture, hopefully it will be more successful than tonights!