Recycling water

 I'm in recycling mode again and pulled out an old canvas to use.  It had a light/dark base on it and I didn't give it a base coat of gesso before starting this painting so the initial coverage isn't complete and I see the demarcation line dividing the previous painting's colours.  Also another painting was resting against this canvas and there is a slight indentation.  However, these things should resolve themselves, otherwise it becomes a study!

The weather this summer has been beyond miserable.  It has to be the coldest, windiest, wettest summer on record with day after day after day of relentless grey.  So I decided one way to beat it was to create some tropical looking water so I could at least pretend it was warm.

This will be a view of a lovely turquoise sea with the sunlight rippling across the sand on the shallow bottom, stretching out into deeper water.   This is the start of the piece in oils, 14 x 18" I think - I didn't measure it - on gallery canvas.

Eveline - complete

  Eveline

8 x 10  

oils on canvas panel

Update:  I've added this better image now that some of the shine from the oil has diminished.  This is truer to colour and value of the original, though still a little light.

I've finished the final glazing and touches on this piece and am calling it done.  Well I may still tweak that left hand curler a little more, but aside from that I'm not touching it.  Because there is fresh oil on it, its difficult to get a decent photo, but this may be close enough for now.  Its a little darker and browner in real life.

Although a grisaille is usually the underpainting for a colour piece, I'm leaving this one alone as I like the sepia-like colour.  I used burnt umber for the base with some titanium white then glazed with Transparent Oxide Brown which I adore.  It adds such warmth to a piece.

I used poppyseed oil and a little turps for the final glaze then softened the strokes with a broad fan brush.  It needs to dry and sit for a few days, meanwhile onto a new piece.

Grisaille portrait update

I haven't had a lot of time this week to do much painting.  House guests and still not feeling 100% with this cold, limits what I can achieve.  However, I do a few minutes here and there and it builds over time.

I'm adjusting shapes as I go, especially the hair, trying to get the curlers in the right place then block in the values.  The face is more or less as I want it, with more shading to be glazed to intensify the shadows.  I did wipe and redo the eyes several times before I was satisfied with them.  Most likely because I didn't do a drawing on the canvas first, instead went straight in with a brush and drew loosely from there.  I need to follow my own advice.  It saves time.

There's something about monotone images that brings me back in time.  The sepia tones are the trigger and the sense of painting as it was done hundreds of years ago.  Traditions are steeped in time and never lost.