Quent Cordair Fine Art

The last step is to chop in the remaining background elements. They aren’t particularly important or interesting, so I don’t spend much time painting them in any detail. The most important element they add to the painting is their color, which gives context to the colors in the important areas of the painting. Unfortunately, this image, taken just after I finished working, is not the best. The fresh paint is much glossier than the drier paint, and reflects a lot of light. You can really see the texture of the cotton canvas, especially in the top right of the painting. Even so, it gives you a good enough idea of what the finished oil sketch looks like. I am quite pleased with the way this one turned out, but then I suppose everyone is partial to paintings of their own kids, and Ernie was always one of my favorite Muppets.

I hope this has been at least a somewhat interesting diversion from the more serious work usually presented in the studio.

In this step I will be finishing off the lower half of the Ernie doll. As I re-read the previous steps, I realize that I keep repeating the description of the dark-to-light, mid-tone-to-highlight process. These five images should illustrate that process a little better.

In Image 1, I have mixed four different mid-tone colors, and very quickly chopped them in to place. At this point I am only concerned with the most general form.

Image 2 shows the same four colors once they have been blended a bit.

In Image 3, I have used a dark blue and black to paint the darkest areas and further define some of the major wrinkles. It is at this point that it is easy to get carried away and muddy up the whole thing. This is far more likely if the mid-tones are painted in too light. It is much easier to correct for too-dark mid-tones, but of course the preferred method is to paint them so that no correction is needed at all.

In Image 4, the main highlights have been blended in to give the pants their final color and define the lesser wrinkles.

Image 5 shows the finished pants and shoes. A few final highlights were added in pure white to the pants to really make them pop. Once again, this is an easy place to get carried away. The highlights only work because of their contrast with the rest of the colors…add too many and you end up with white pants. The shoes were painted in the same way.

Between beginning this step and completing the last, the entire painting has dried to the touch. At this point I consider the sketching phase to be over and the painting phase in full swing.

Using pretty much the same palate as before for the skin tones, and using the under painting as reference, I paint the face in its final detail. Almost all of the highlights and many of the mid-tones from the previous steps are painted over, as well as a few areas of shadow. The darkest areas at the corners of the mouth, around the eyes and the final outline of the head and hand are added with ivory black and burnt umber. Pure titanium white is used for the brightest highlights on the top of the head.

During the same sitting, I painted a quick base coat of mid-tones for the jacket, and as long as I had the dark paint on my palette, I began blocking in some of the darkest areas surrounding the figure.

Once again, between these two images, most of the new paint has dried to the touch. This really doesn’t take much time at all for the colors that contain burnt umber or yellow ochre…usually overnight. Some of the thicker whites are still wet, but have stiffened significantly, and will no longer blend easily with new paint. If any major work remained on the face, I would allow it to dry further before continuing, but all that needs to be added are a few small highlights of titanium white on the nose, upper lip, ears and fingers. These I can add with the paint in its current state.

The jacket, the blue blanket and the final work on the top half of Ernie all proceeded in basically the same way: first the mid-tones, then the shadows, then the highlights. This painting is small enough that that sort of work goes quickly, especially the since small distortions in color or shape don’t stand out in these areas like they would in the face or hand.

Working with titanium white, cad red, burnt umber, yellow ochre and ivory black, I begin to paint the flesh tones onto/into the sketch. The un-thinned colors are so powerful in comparison to the thinned colors of the sketch that they dominate them completely with only the slightest blending. I find that it is almost always easier to paint dark to light, first with the mid-tones, and then with the deep shadows and highlights. Blending dark paint into light usually seems to yield a muddy, clumsy looking effect, while blending light into dark is much easier to control, and looks smoother. (The former can be done well, but it takes a lot more time and skill with a brush.) I think a lot of beginning painters who are used to pencil or charcoal drawing where all work is necessarily done from light to dark run into this problem. It is much harder to create a fine line with paint that with a pencil, and beginners often end up with exaggerated shadows and dark lines in their painting because they loose control of the dark colors while trying to blend them into the lighter ones.

Not to let Ernie feel left out, I worked a little more on him as well.

I continue working with the burnt umber/black combination until the major values are basically in place. There is a great deal of flexibility at this point, as a dry brush will pick up a lot of paint, and act as an eraser. As a short diversion, I blocked in Ernie’s skin tones and a few other areas that use the same colors.

Next I begin placing some mid-tone highlights with a combination of titanium white and cad red. At this point, the entire painting is still wet, so blending the colors to the desired value is pretty simple. This whole process replaces the careful sketching of the canvas I would use in a more serious painting. It’s good practice, and easy to get away with since I’m not combining multiple pieces of reference material or employing any complex perspective.