Waiting for Spring

Silverpoint on light blue prepared paper heightened with white gouache
14 x 10

We didn't really have to wait for spring this year. It got here a good month early, and it feels like it's already over now. That's not so bad except for all the lawn mowing. I need the exercise.

Anyway this is the last of my small efforts to give the people what they want. A fair number of people come here from the silverpoint web presumably to see the silverpoints. So here you go. I rather like this one, unfortunately it refuses to be photographed accurately. This is a bit on the dark side. Hope you find it worth the visit.

No idea what's coming next, but I promise there will be something.

Now where was I?

It seems I've been missing in action for a while. Couldn't be helped. Thanks to all the people that keep dropping by. Now, where was I before all this. Oh yeah, I was going over what the stats say everyone likes. First was charcoal drawings, next is the Lady in the Lake theme, silverpoint is coming.

For some reason people seem to really like the Lady in the Lake. It is a nice story, but why the preoccupation? Not that important really. I haven't actually gotten back to the story, but I do have something similar that just might make do in a pinch. It's Greek mythology rather than Arthurian and it is a lady in a lake (technically a river) maybe that's close enough. So here it is The Song of the Potameides.

Oil om Canvas
25 x 36

I can here it now. Song of the what?

Potameides are one of the five types of Naiades, the nymphs of the freshwater. Potameides are the nymphs of the steams and rivers specifically. The other types are Pegaiai, the nymphs of the springs, Krinaia, the nymphs of the fountains, Linmades of Limnatides, the nymphs of the lakes, and the Eleionomai, the nymphs of the marshes. While their essence is directly tied to their specific body of water they are not confined to it. The Naiades are not immortal, but they do have extremely long life spans. However being linked to the water their fate could also be tied to it. If their lake, spring, river, fountain or marsh dries up, bad news for the naiade. Well somebody here seems to be overeducated.

I think this is the first painting I have ever done based entirely on an underlying grid. Somewhere around here I have that preliminary grid with the drawing on it, but I have no idea where it is. I think it wound up on the back of something else that has since found it's way to the trash. But I think it really helped to bring everything together. Placement of objects was pretty easy. Follow the grid structure and put it there. One thing I have wondered about is does it need more? I tend to follow the idea of if it doesn't add to the overall image, it detracts. As a result I don't do a lot of really busy pieces. Personally I like the simplicity and lack of clutter. Of course that can be overdone.

Something for the charcoal lovers

Charcoal and white chalk
14 x 26

According to the stats for this blog a lot of people come here via image search for charcoal drawings and portraits. Considering how few charcoal drawings i do that strikes me as a bit of a surprise. But I'm all about making people happy so here's one for the charcoal lovers out there. I'm still having trouble getting comfortable with the medium, but I like the look enough to keep trying. For bigger drawings it's much better than pencil and a silverpoint this size would take forever. That in itself makes it worth pursuing.

The stats also say there are even more people coming here for the silverpoint drawings. Not today, but there are more on the way. Stay tuned.

Candlelight II

Silverpoint heightened with white gouache
10 x 14

A return to the candlelight theme here today. This is one of those things that practically drew itself, once it got started at least. It had a rather inauspicious beginning. I do all the hard drawing on regular paper with a plain old everyday pencil. Once I'm satisfied with the basic line drawing I'll transfer it to the prepared silverpoint paper. I wish I could tell you that I'm good enough to do it all right on the final grounded paper, but I can't. Deal with it, I have. You've got to remember that the grounds are pretty fragile and you can't erase a silverpoint line. Anyway, after I'd transferred the drawing I noticed a charcoal smudge right off the end of her nose. Being that it was charcoal I could just erase that, except as it turned out the eraser was a little on the dirty side, and it left and even worse smudge than I'd started with. I've tried to correct things like that in the past, and found out that the best way of dealing with it is to cut your losses and start over from scratch. So I had to trash this before I'd even started. Glad I started over.

Wading

watercolor
22 x 15

Today's offering is a watercolor. Watercolors can be tricky little things. To be really good you need to do a lot of them. That's pretty much true of everything. Can't be good without putting in the time to get there. It seems to be particularly true of watercolors though. There's so many little things you need to keep in mind. For certain effects the paper has to be at a certain degree of wetness. A little too wet it won't work, a little too dry it won't work, and the only way to know when it's at that correct point is experience. Unfortunately you have to keep at it or you lose a lot of what you've gained. Lots of little tricks too. Again though if you take some time away from the medium you forget the little tricks.

That being said, I need to do more watercolors or forget about it completely. Can't see me giving it up completely though. I like watercolor too much. I think I actually prefer it to oil.

A Few Little Sketches

Looks like I wandered off for a while again. That's partly due to not doing much of anything, and I managed to screw up my shoulder playing lumberjack a few weeks ago. Well, at least I have plenty of firewood for the winter. I did get quite a bit of designing done. There's three good size paintings all designed and draw all ready to go with another two right behind. Nothing to it but to do it now. (Note to self, get those canvases stretched and grounded so they'll have some time to age.)

Since it's been so long I thought I should put something up even if they're not the greatest things I've ever done. So three little sketches today, not much more than background studies really.


Oil on Panel
6 x 12
Not much to say here. Moving on.


Oil on paper attached to panel
5 x 12

If you've never worked on paper it's a really nice surface for sketches. This is an old piece of Whatman's watercolor paper. As it turns out I absolutely hated the paper for watercolor, way too absorbent. But with a thin coat of acrylic matte medium it makes a nice surface for oils. Good for outside work too because as you may guess it weighs next to nothing. Just tack it to a thin board or even some foam core and off you go.

At one time I had considered using something like this as a background for a Lady in the Lake painting. I may have to come back to it. Still think it has some possibilities.


Oil on panel
6 x 12

I think this is easily the best of the three. There was a paint out up on one of the river towns a while back. Seemed like a good idea so off I went. The weather didn't cooperate at all so I turned around and came back home. I did take a few pictures along the way though. This is one of them so the day wasn't a complete wash out.

What to say?

I saw this video over on the Gurney Journey and just had to pass it on. Strangely enough it kinda fits into what I have been thinking about the last few days. You see, I couldn't quite come up with what I wanted to say about today's offering. That's mainly because there's really nothing to say from my standpoint. So I could make something up that may well be marginally interesting or just punt. I've never been particularly good at creative writing so maybe the video will be a good lead-in. So here's artist's statement along with translation.



And here are today's drawings.



Both are silverpoint and 10 x 8

While these are both nice little drawings, more or less competent, let's face it, they're not exactly earth shattering. Don't get me wrong I like them both quite a bit, and I think they're worth looking at, but neither have any great message. And that's all right too. Everything doesn't have to be a metaphor for something else. Sometimes a drawing is just a drawing. I did them because I liked the poses and the overall feel. The second one is actually a rather sissy pose with no face and just the back of a hand without any fingers showing, but I like it anyway. Deal with it. How's that for an artist's statement?

That being said i'll bet that somewhere out there somebody is going to like these even without all the artistic gobbledygook. Maybe they'll even find a message of their own. So much the better. Maybe they'll even want them for their own. That can be arranged too.

Well, y'all take care out there and try to retain your sanity.

Sugar Creek

Oil on Canvas
24 x 18

Have you all been paying attention? If you have this may look familiar. Back in late February there was a study for this. It's finally done, I think, and I've gotten around to posting it. I'm pretty happy with this. It may not be the bright, sunny autumn day you usually get, but that wasn't what I was after besides those are way too common. I was after something more moody. The day was misty at best. It looked like it was about to pour actually so the day of painting outdoors was put on hold. Instead I took a little stroll in the mud up this little stream fully expecting to get really wet. I escaped merely damp and the camera showed no ill effects. Anyway that's the story of what I was trying to do. Hopefully I did more than just give a weather report. Funny thing is that by the time I got home it was bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

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.