"Single" - Alkyd on Canvas, 2009 |
Being away from this discipline for so long, I wanted my first painting to make a statement. If I never painted again, this would say something about the artist, so I looked at my lifestyle, and indeed, the lifestyles of most people living in these times. A still life can say so much, especially in a historical sense, and I set out to capture a moment in time (April, 2009 - as the bus pass clearly illustrates). I was aware of my life as a bachelor, and felt that this would be reflected in a rather cluttered composition involving items with personal meaning. I knew this would take longer than a month or so, but I had no idea it would take me eight months.. Preparation
The most important piece of advice I can give about undertaking a labour-intensive, long-term project like this, is to get a well-lit space that you are comfortable in. This should be somewhere that will not be disturbed by others. It should be an area that you can walk away from for a week, and come back to find everything waiting for you. There are times when you won't even want to look at your work. In the past, I would work from a series of photographs, relying on various close-up shots for details. But that's all changed. With a combination of digital photography and Photoshop, I set up a one-stop reference with more than enough detail. With my computer monitor close to my easel, I had but to look over, and possibly zoom in, to the image on the screen. That's using technology. The idea for this painting, and hopefully many more to follow, is strong back lighting. I find a lit from behind composition to be peaceful and contemplative. It can also be visually engaging with unusual shadows and highlights. Several challenges existed in setting up, and taking my reference photo for Single; the most pressing being the window of optimum light. It turned out that 7:30 to 8:00 am, on a sunny day, was perfect for my vision of long, early morning shadows. As for the seemingly random objects laying around - well, they were anything but random. It took me over 2 hours to get everything set up properly; in some cases, I moved objects less than a centimetre at a time until I was satisfied. As mentioned in the title, this painting is Alkyd on canvas, 26 x 22" in size. I chose Alkyd paint because it behaves very much like oil, but dries considerably faster. I tend to mix in linseed oil, as this slows the drying time down to 4 hours plus. With all my blending on the canvas, and slow, detailed work, anything faster could be problematic. For my palette, I kept things simple: red, yellow, blue, black and white. For those of you who know your colour theory, all colours can be created from the first three, with black and white to change saturation and intensity levels. This actually does work to an extent, but some greens and especially the purple range are difficult to mix. Theory can only get you so far. However, this is still a very simple palette, and matching colours later on is relatively easy. Getting Started
There are various ways to sketch out your composition onto the canvas. You can use a pencil freehand, or even start to paint. For more complicated and accurate starts, you can apply a grid over your original sketch or photograph, and match a larger grid over your canvas. This allows you to more draw accurately within the grids. Unfortunately, due to the rough surface of canvas, a pencil line is unpredictable, and erasing the lines leaves quite a mess. I prefer a projection system, which allows for quick and simple lines. Wait! Isn't this cheating? Read on. There is no sense in trying to outline anything more than basic shapes; even if you could draw in amazing detail, it would be lost in the under painting. I'm afraid the only way to get the details right, is to paint more accurately as you go. I have included my original pencil lines, just to give you an idea of what is needed to guide me through to the next step. Notice the mess from smudged pencil... The under painting is when the geometry in the composition is really defined. If you compare the stuffed dog's left ear on pencil lines to the version on under painting, for instance, you will see that I changed the shape when I painted it black - I decided it would look better if it drooped a bit. All areas of the canvas are painted in a colour that is either similar to the finished area, or compliments it in some way. The act of under painting also sets up the canvas's surface, and allows for a more opaque and smoother application of subsequent layers. Eight Months Later
Although this painting took eight months, I must confess that I didn't work that hard on it, especially during the summer months - there was a German Shepherd to walk in the woods, among other things. With a full time job, it's hard to put in more than a few hours in the evening. As a rough estimate, I would have to say that this took me 300 hours in total. There were a few mistakes, and I occasionally changed my mind, so perhaps the next painting will only take 200 hours. For the most part, my method involves very thin layers, often taking advantage of the translucency of the paint. This is where the under painting pays off - a sense of depth results, and as an interesting side effect, the painting appears to change in different kinds of light. With the simple case of folds in material, I start by painting a solid layer of the basic over-all colour. When that's dry, I will start to define the shadows with a slightly darker colour. The same applies for hi-lights, using a lighter colour, of course. I'm sure I have done as many as ten layers with something as complicated as the glass of beer. Sometimes I find it wise to stop painting when I'm satisfied, and come back the next day when everything's dry. If I make a mistake with something tricky - such as the three remotes, I simply get a paper towel, dab it in linseed oil, and rub the last 10-15 minutes work off; leaving the dry paint alone...sort of like the un-do button on my computer, but not really... There is an advantage to this slow method of building up the layers. I often examine what I've done the next day, and come up with a strategy to fix something that isn't working out. Since this composition is mostly in shadows, I artificially brought up the luminance; almost as if some unknown secondary light was filling in the details. I had to constantly monitor what I was doing, not in reference to my photo, but to the other areas on the painting. In fact, one of the last finishing touches, was to darken parts of the shadows, especially on the chair and laundry. There was no way to know how dark until I had finished the other areas. Changing My Mind
I prefer the idea of changing my mind over fixing mistakes, but let's face it - nobody is perfect. As a prime example, I have isolated four progress shots of the shadowed carpet. The most obvious problem was not noticed, or addressed, until Carpet 4. If you look carefully at the long shadows, you will notice a line that should bisect the remote control is missing in the first three shots. Well, for 5 months, I failed to notice it missing! This problem started at the pencil sketch stage, and I didn't question my own accuracy from that point on ... Because of my simple palette system, I had no trouble matching the colours, and painting the new shadow in. In Carpet 3, I decided to add in some brighter yellows and oranges to the shadows. I did this by applying a wash of pure colour, mixed with linseed oil, and then rubbing most of it off with a bit of paper towel. By the time I reached Carpet 4, I had toned the all the shadows down, and added on highlights to the individual fibres - the orange just didn't work.
As I was finishing off the ipod on the arm of my chair, iPod 1, I realized that the middle shadow was too thin when it met the body. Although this was annoying, I had to match the shadows for the ear phone cord, anyway, so I widened this shadow. (iPod 2) Once again, my limited palette made this fairly easy. The single gray sock is an important part of this composition, and your eye is drawn to it. When it was basically done, I was aware that something was wrong; that it didn't quite belong (Sock 1). My father pointed out to me that it appeared to be floating, and he was right. To fix this, I added more colour and detail to the pillow underneath. This afforded me the opportunity to give the sock a shadow, thus eliminating the problem (Sock 2).
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