Back Study

oil on panel
12 x 11

Another little figure study today. I don't think I've done a figure painting in a while so it seemed a good idea to do one before I forget how to do skin tones completely. Not that I knew all that much to start with, but I have picked a few things here and there. So today's effort was centered on skin tones both in strong light and deep shadow. Can I get that glow that comes from a strongly lit figure? I think it came out pretty good actually.

Unfortunately, this is not the best picture. Sorry but something this dark with a glazed background, strong contrasts, and some pretty thick paint in places created a lot of glare with little hot spots that are beyond my ability as a photographer. I think you can still get the idea though.

Figure Drawing

pencil and white chalk on Bugra paper
20 x 30ish

More in my continuing effort to improve or at least maintain my drawing skills. I really do like doing these larger, more finished drawings. They take some time, but that's all right. I think it's time well spent.

I still can't decide if I like this Bugra paper or not. It's awfully soft and rough for my taste. Still it holds up to erasing pretty well and it does take pencil nicely as long as it's a nice sharp pencil. And then there's the fact that I still have quite a bit of it left.

Asleep

Silverpoint on blue gray prepared paper
5.75 x 12.75

It seemed like this thing took forever to do. I don't know if it really did or if it just felt that way. It shouldn't have. It's not bigger than usual or particularly complicated. The dark background did take quite a while to build up which is a pretty boring activity. And I did take a few elements out of that background. Speaking of the background, sorry about the glare. It's a much flatter tone. Photographing silverpoint is the only thing I don't like about the medium. That's probably why they tend to back up. I've got a bit of a backload to post in the coming weeks.

Fog Shrouded

I had a little unintended break there. Time just gets away from me sometimes. During that break I realized that some of the things I thought were done -- well, not so much. So a little more work, some more photography and we'll get back to them. This one was and remains done.


Oil on Panel
12 x 9

Another trip to the wetlands on a foggy day, actually the same day as a couple earlier posts. That was a good day. I think I got some good spacial depth here, pretty happy with that. What I want to point out here are the grays though. I've been a proponent of the "grays make the picture' theory. The last two paintings really show that. They are both basically a collection of grays, but the addition of just a little bit of brighter color brings a great deal of interest. If you really look hard at those spots of color you'll see that they are also pretty low chroma too. So the moral is that you only have a limited variety of hue, value and chroma to work with so save your bullets for the places they are needed most. Don't overdo it or you'll have no room left for accents.

Good Friday Storms

No art today, more of a weather report and storm aftermath. You in the US may have heard this on the news, but since I happened to be in it I think it definitely deserves a mention here.

First let me say we're fine, no problems here. But just a mile or so away large trees were snapped along with huge hail. We got extremely lucky here.

Late last Friday afternoon (Good Friday) we had a storm front move through, actually two big storms that met up in St Louis. They really started picking up strength west of here in Warrenton, maybe even as far west as Hermann, and tore through well into eastern Illinois. I don't know exactly how far that is, but I would think it's a good 100 miles.

These weren't your normal everyday thunderstorms. They were big and it seemed they were just about everywhere. Rain, hail and tornadoes were all there, and not just the run of the mill version. Hail the size of soft balls (that's about 4 inches for the non sporting), inches of rain and a confirmed E4 tornado (the scale goes to 5) An E4 tornado is defined as having winds from 166 to 200 miles per hour, that's big and rare. E5s are practically unheard of. Just to get an idea of how rare these are E4 and E5 tornadoes make up less than 1% of all tornadoes. It wasn't entirely unexpected. Stormy weather had been predicted for several days. There were even storm chasers in town waiting for them. They were probably still here from Tuesday when another good size storm rolled through about the same time of day. Well, they got a good show. One of the bigger cells went right over the regional weather bureau which isn't very far from here.

If you've never been a big storm complete with tornadoes consider yourself lucky, but they are extremely fickle. By that I mean one place can be totally leveled while someplace else just a few hundred yards away can come through unscathed. That's what happened here. There was a lot of destruction in New Melle just a few miles away in a straight line from here. Just a mile or so there were 12 inch trees broken down and egg size hail. Here, some hail, mostly pea size with a few piece slightly bigger. One gust of wind maybe, but nothing out of the ordinary. Didn't even blow over the trash can. Like I said we were really lucky this time.

Pictures are worth a thousand words so here are some pictures just to give you some idea. I stole most of these from the local news stations. If you'd like to see more google fox 2 news or kmov.

This is what it looked like coming in. Storm sirens are already blaring.




I forgot to mention some rather spectacular lightning.


Here's one of the tornadoes. I don't think it's one of the big ones that did most of the damage, but it's big enough. Most of the tornadoes we get around here are rain wrapped making it hard to see them. Not your classic plains tornadoes here.



That's some big hail and it was pretty widespread.

Now look at some of the damage. While you're looking at this keep in mind that there were no deaths and not even any serious injuries as far as I know. Apparently the warning systems work pretty well and I think there was a fair amount of luck involved too.




The airport was hit really bad too. There are a lot of big reinforced glass panels there that were mostly blown out. Most of the roof on one section is gone. The windows in the control tower that are supposed to be able to withstand a wind of at least 100 miles an hour were blown out. And then there this picture of a shuttle van that was apparently picked up, and is now just dangling off the side of the building.


The area in general is quite a mess. Tornado damage, flooding from the storms and normal spring floods with more rain coming today, tomorrow maybe Tuesday and Wednesday too. We'll get through it though, always have before. Nobody died so it's not that bad. One last view.

Wetlands in Fog

Oil on Panel
8 x 16

Another one of those moody, foggy wetlands paintings. Not much to say about this, hopefully it speaks for itself. I think there are a few more of these in me trying to get out. I'll try to mix in some other things so you won't get bored.

Spots of Interest

In my roaming around I've come across a few sites that may be of interest, at least I thought they were. Some are already linked here but I think these deserve some special attention.

First, if you've ever wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, but found yourself economically challenged or maybe you just don't want to go all the way to Italy here's your chance. Here is the Sistine Chapel in the round without the crowds. Moving around takes a bit of getting used to, but still pretty cool stuff. Really the best way to see the ceiling frescoes is to lay down on your back and just look up. You'll find that that's frowned upon, and you'd probably be trampled. Don't have to worry about that here.

Edit: The Vatican doesn't seem to want to cooperate. The link isn't taking you to where it's supposed to. Here's the actual address, maybe a little cut and paste will work. http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm

Next is Scott's Sketchbook from Scott Waddell. The whole blog is good, but what deserves special notice is his series of webisodes dealing with drawing and painting. Lots of good, clearly presented information, and the webisodes are really well put together. He puts some time in on these rascals.

And lastly is this video of a lecture held at the Grand Central Academy on the Golden Ratio. You may find the first part a little heavy on the geometry, but it is needed to introduce the topic. Once he gets into the use of the ratio and underlying grid systems in general, well, I thought it was interesting.

The Golden Ratio from Benjamin Cave on Vimeo.

Angry Eyes

Silverpoint
8 x 10

I did this one a while back when I was thinking about The Lady in the Lake that eventually turned into a watercolor. I wound up going a different direction, but at one time I had thought about using this or something like it as the lady. The expression would have worked nicely I think. She would have been in the lake with the water bubbling up around here gradually turning into her white gown. Still like that concept, may have to go back to it.

Late Snow

We had a bit of a surprise here last Monday. I woke up, opened up the blinds and there was almost six inches of snow, wet, heavy snow. Not a word about snow in the forecast. Caught 'em napping. Strangely enough some of the weather forecasters seemed almost proud of being totally clueless. So this one's for you.


Egg Tempera on panel
7.25 x 13

It's not last week's snow. This is an older piece, haven't worked in tempera is quite a while now, but it seemed appropriate. Besides it's not a bad little painting. I just never got around to getting a good picture to post. I used to really like tempera. It allowed me to do things I couldn't do with oils. That's mostly because I didn't understand how to use oils, a problem i have since overcome. At least that what some people tell me. Personally I think the jury is still out on that one. Anyway, it's a nice draftsman's medium. It does have a really nice subtle quality that oils just don't have. Sometimes I miss it.

Reference Photo as a Point of Departure

So, today I thought I'd talk about using reference photos. Yes I often work from reference photos. I think most of us do, if not entirely at least from time to time. I look at photography as a mechanical sketchbook most of the time. I also work directly from nature quite a bit, more and more actually, but reference photos still are important to me. When using photos though you must be aware of certain limitations. The darks tend to be too dark or the lights are washed out or some combination of the two. Color is seldom if ever completely correct so don't follow it too closely. And then there is the problem of lens distortion. A lot of potential problems to keep in mind. That's why working directly from nature is a good thing and reference photos are really just a point of departure to augment what you already know.

Let's look at this fairly simple, nothing out of the ordinary, photo.



Not really a lot going on here other than that nice sweep of water. So let's focus on that.



That's better. But still it could be better with just the addition of a distant hill something like this.



A very minor addition, but it gives the picture a little more depth and it echoes the curve of the water. Repetition of form is always a good way to unify a composition. Here's a quick illustration of what I mean just in case my words aren't making much sense.



At this point I'm thinking this isn't too bad. The sky could use some more interest, but basically it's something I would like to paint. It should be pointed out that I really like the salt marsh paintings of Martin Johnson Heade and this is right down his alley. Back to the interest in the sky though, what could be more interesting than a sunset? A good storm, but I want to do a sunset today, and work with that glow that comes at the very end of the day. Besides a sunset is much more of a departure from the original photo and that is what I set out to talk about today. We'll save the storm for another day.



Light is usually the most important part of a landscape painting. That's why I start with the sky, that's where the light comes from. In this case the entire landscape should be infused with this golden sunset light. That's important to remember because all this color is made up. A lot of people these days don't particularly like the warm, cool designation, I don't either actually, but in this case it's kind of useful since everything should have a warm golden glow.

So, my intent in this painting was to capture that very end of the day glow when night is trying to take over from the day, but the daylight isn't quite ready to go yet. That plus can I do it without having the scene right before me either in the form of nature or a photo?