Saturday on Max: Accepting the challenge.

Saturday on Max   14" X18" Acrylic on Canvas Panel

The story behind this painting began last Wednesday.  I sold the Downtown at Daybreak  painting last week.  This left a spot to fill at the B2 (Squared) wine Bar.  I was encouraged to do another cityscape so... 

I spent the better part of my Wednesday attempting another cityscape.  It did not go well.  However, as with most paintings I learned a few things along the way.  I was also reminded of a couple of things.  The most important being that you can never compromise on the composition.  I thought I could compose the painting without precisely measuring the angles.  I was wrong.  No matter what I tried the painting was just a little off.  I had to scrap the entire painting and choose a new subject.  So Saturday I chose this  challenging scene of a Max train going up the downtown transit mall.  I had shied away from this because I wasn't sure how the  Max train would end up looking.  But I really liked the scene.
  I thought I would start by painting some of the train to get some practice with the values and angles.  So I began to paint over the last painting.  As it progressed I realized that it was going well enough that I should continue.  By Sunday morning I had committed to this version.  So what had started as an exercise painting over the last panel  ended up being a finished painting.
On a side note, I took photos of the process.  At one point I washed the entire top of the painting with white to get rid of the painting beneath. This created a very interesting fog like effect with the buildings in the background of the old painting creating ghostly images and the train emerging into the foreground.  I liked it so much I almost left it as it was, but I was determined to try to finish the scene.  And I thought I could always go back later, wash it out and achieve the same effect.  Later as I was putting in the trees, I decided to try and go back to the wash.  This didn't work because the trees were now part of the painting and the effect was not believable enough.
Unfortunately the photos I took of this effect have been lost forever.   When I shut off my old camera, the lense refused to retract into the body.  Long story short,  the camera was in my pocket, and when I went to change clothes today, I stepped on the lense and effectively killed the thing.  The photos are in the camera's internal memory (another result of the dying camera) and it will not power up.  So new painting, and new camera today.  Both were long overdue.

Detail.

Cityscape: New Lessons learned

As I read through the original post about this painting I realized how my opinion had changed.  So I decided to update what I think about this painting. 
It is interesting to see how my opinion can change about my own work even though I have left it alone.  This painting grew on me more and more as the weeks went by.  I began to look at all the positive things rather than where I had struggled with it.  So when I look at it today, I am satisfied and comfortable with it.  There will always be things that you feel you could have done better, but at the end of the day, if you achieve the visual result you wanted, you have suceeded.

Early Saturday.

Early Saturday on 6th   12X16" Acrylic on Canvas

 I started this one Saturday morning.  I chose the smaller canvas thinking that I first needed to establish a rhythm of painting.  Initially  I couldn't picture in my head how the painting would work, but I kept going.  I added layers to the foreground, established some lines and kept adding layers.   Eventually I was able to work thru the problems and it emerged quite nicely.   I'm learning that you can't paint as freely with Acrylic as you can with watercolor, unless you don't mind wasting a bunch of paint.  I usually mix colors on the fly, but I don't expect them to dry out in 10 minutes.  I know there are ways to make them last longer, and I'll have to look into doing that.  I do like that you can layer them as well as make them opaque.  Well, its on to the next canvas.  I need to do a larger painting.  This one's 12X16"

Downtown Early Morning...So Far

This is the Acrylic Painting I've been working on.  I've got some tidying up to do here, but the main portion is done.  This is a rare case where the original actually look better than the photo.  It's very difficult to capture the dark colors with a camera.  I was thinking about making the headlights in the background more prominent, but this seems to be working as well.  I'll have to sit on it.  Im moving on to the next scene.  A larger painting that might test my resolve to ge this project done. 
  One thing I have discovered again about Acrylic paint.  It dries faster on the pallette than you can paint most of the  time.  This makes me think harder about moving to oils.

Stage Three: Digital Delay. Reference photo has no neck.

I got to the point  where I was ready to paint the lower portion and realized that my reference photo had been cropped.  I quite literally cut my own throat here. (thank you, that pun just popped into my head).  I have been grumbling about the digital frame I use for my reference photos.  It's difficult to navigate because the cheap buttons on the back don't always work.  In short, I need a normal  computer display to work from so the I can get rid of this thing. (or I can just work from life, but this one has specific lighting that won't look right if I do that)  The digital menu jumps around and I can't find the photo I need, then when I go to zoom it jumps out of the menu and I have to start over.  Hate is a strong word...I hate that thing.  By the way, my pc is just across the room and too far away to use, so Ill probably end up using my old pc as a photo holder and get a new monitor for that.
Now that I've vented, the actual photo is on this computer and I'll have to upload to the digital frame to go any further.  The danger of not being able to work on something when I'm ready is that I start to tinker with the finished parts.  So instead of tinkering, I decided to post this.  More as it develops.

Second Stage

Slowly, (and I mean slowly) but surely the painting is coming along.  At this second sitting...by the way, who EVER has used that term in reference to watercolor.?..  It feels like I'm working on an oil painting.  This time however, it's because I'm putting multiple layers in the dark areas to build the shadows rather than putting color in and dabbing out the light areas. When I started this, I used only the colors that were on my palette, which made for some interesting color combinations.  But as I progressed into this stage, I ran out of paint and had to decide what I really wanted to use for color.  I chose raw sienna, Ultramarine Blue and of course my old standby for cool shadows, Cerulean Blue. I also dabbed some Davy's Gray on my pallet to add to the Ultramarine blue if I need it.  I should mention that just before I ran out of paint on my palette, I found a little well of Yellow Ochre.  I found this to work nicely to represent the lighter area of the shadow on the forehead.  I'm feeling like I could make a fatal error by not having an actual planned color scheme, but so far it's working just flying by the seat of my pants.  At one point I was thinking I should make some decisions on what I want to do, but  I think it's more exciting to just go by feel and see what happens.  And now that I've kind of seen whats working I will probably stick with that Ultramarine Blue, Davys Gray, Yellow Ochre and some of the reds that seem to have worked in representing the skin as it emerges from the shadow.  This is intended to be a dark painting, which in some ways helps.  As long as I get the values close it should work.  In the back of my mind I'm also thinking that if I lose this painting,  I have another one in me.  So in some ways, this is a "study" that might end up being an actual finished painting.  My favorite way of painting is with cautioned expectations. I end up painting more relaxed.  Notice the splashes and drips where I've thrown the color on.  That's the best part of watercolor to me.

As an added note. I always like seeing how the photos come out.  Seeing this in 2D helps me see some of the fixes that are needed in the composition.  And the compacted view helps me see if my value range is working.

Latest News: Self Portrait

I felt compelled to post something new today because I got tired of seeing the same post day after day.  It's a reminder to me that I've done nothing since then.  I drew the outline for a self portrait over the weekend.  I've been intending to get a self portrait in my portfolio for awhile and after taking several dozen pictures, decided it was time to at least try one.  This is the first stage of a large one I started this morning. So far, so good, but when I snapped the photo the reflection of the water that hadn't dried created an effect that wont be there later, so the nose actually looks better than it is at this point.  But as I said, I needed to get something in a post.  My intention is to create a fair amount of texture in the shadows to make the painting interesting. It's important to let the watercolor do it's thing.  Just need to nudge it in the right direction.

Lately my work schedule is not conducive to painting (or sleeping for that matter), but I've found time to golf so there really is no excuse not to paint as well. 

In a fist fight with detail. Patience on Trial...and, "Cosmic Rocks?"

 I posted the current stage of this painting first.  That's because I knew this would appear as my thumbnail pic, and I didn't want to deceive the viewer into thinking the mid stage pic was where I'm at.  I'm completely aware that the mid stage picture might look better, but in reality it is not.

 Current Stage:The camera loves to pick out that light blue (Cerulean), but this was as close as i could get to showing the actual colors. That Light blue is not as evident in the actual painting.  Maddening.

Mid Stage: This seemed to be going in the right direction here, but I wasn't happy with the forms, mostly because the left side, which I didn't get in frame, wasn't blending with the rest of it.  I thought about leaving the bottom blank.  When I went back to it, I decided that was actually drawing too much of the eye.  Keep in mind that the bottom was completely white, not that cool looking color the camera gave the blank area.

I went into this one with the intention of grinding out the details in small bits and pieces to make one cohesive, identifiable painting...The more I tried, the less it worked.  I'm disappointed at the result.  Not so much because of the painting at this stage, but because of the amount of time I invested in trying to make this work in the way I had intended.  I could not find the right color of blue show what I wanted to portray.  The cool reflection of light on the surface.  This was frustrating, and I had to leave it the way it was for now.
I woke up this morning thinking about where I can make a studio space for oil painting.  This would have been so much easier in oil.  And I don't even work in oil.  The writing is on the wall for me, and I have to make the commitment to making this happen.
With watercolor I have found that as much as I try to work from light to dark, I can't resist throwing in some darks before I have finished under-laying the lights. I have to have a visual reminder of where I'm headed.  I think this is where I get myself into trouble.  Because I have to keep pulling those darks back out where they have bled too far into the light areas.  I also have a hard time accepting too many hard lines in my paintings because I feel they look forced.
You might think by looking at the first painting that it was going well.  But as I mentioned, the painting wasn't looking cohesive with the lighter, sharper lines on the left side (which are out of the frame in that photo).  I do see that the light reflections are more successful in the earlier stage, and I'll probably go back in and make them more prominent in the finished version.  For now I'm moving on to my next project, taking the lessons learned here into account.
Andrew Wyeth once said.  " If one could only catch that true color of nature - the very thought of it drives me mad."  And I thought it was just me.
One final note.  If you can't tell what my subject is, don't worry.  Part of my disappointment comes from knowing that the subject is not evident.  Nothing is more discouraging in my mind as when someone has to ask what it is you're painting. Suffice it to say that I have now decided to classify this as an abstract and title it Cosmic Rocks. 

In a somewhat unrelated note.  One of my favorite painters is showing in NY.  Heres the link to the show.