“My Old Friend”
16”x20”
Oil on linen
This venture into painting began with some remedial painting exercises in color theory because I had intended to start a series of bird carvings and I felt that I needed some work in the area of color matching. And I wanted to learn more about brushes and brushwork because the fish are all painted with an airbrush. But things were going better than expected. I’ve tried in the past but it never ended well. But this time spent painting has been so enjoyable. I don’t want to stop at the end of the day and can’t wait to get started the next morning. I love sculpting and carving but there aren’t any limitations with painting. If I want to paint a bird flying or a fish swimming I can and the subject doesn’t have to be attached to anything. But there are so many good reasons to paint in place of wood carvings. Since I began taking art more seriously, there have been a series of events- one leading to the other. They’ve all been about timing, one building on the other. And if they happened any other way I wouldn’t be where I am today. Not saying I’m moving on from carving, I’m in the middle of a fish carving now. However, I don’t know where this is going but if painting satisfies what it is that makes me do this then I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up settling into painting most of the time.
This painting is a bit tighter than I wanted. I want my brushwork to be looser. But it’s not easy as I thought and I think that has to do in part with the realistic painted sculptures and drawings. It’s just the way I’ve always done things. But I’m learning to commit and have faith in those individual brush strokes and color value. That they blend without actually blending and that will enhance the realism. I’m excited to see where I’ll be a year from now…
It’s also very important when it comes to portraits that everything be as exact as possible with regards to proportion. We know our beloved pets so well and I would hate for a client to one day pass by their portrait and feel uneasy because something seems off. Using a proportional divider is just a tool to double check things, to ensure accuracy and frankly, moves things along more quickly. I could have laid out the drawing freehand or by using a grid. But I never liked using a grid because of all the lines you have to deal with. Which is a big deal when doing a drawing and it takes too long to transfer all those lines from the reference to the paper anyway. So I thought I’d try using a proportional divider for this portrait and it worked like it should. It’s spot on to my reference.
As soon as the painting dries I’ll have it scanned and prints available…
