Quent Cordair Fine Art

The last step of the painting was the signature. Ever since Junior High School I have been signing my drawings and paintings with a lower case b. I have come to think of it as almost a corporate logo for myself. In my more recent, more serious pieces, I have been giving the b a theme to match the painting. I was going to try and do something a little different in 2003 by hiding the b in the background where it might have been found anyway (the hatch label in How Far We’ve Come and the steel company logo on the crane in The Anchorage). In the compositional sketch for this painting the b is shown on the fuselage of the plane, I thought as the registry number. I found while researching the plane for the painting, however, that the registry number for planes in the U.S. always begins with an N, and that it is usually found on the wings. So I fell back on my earlier tradition and painted the little b logo in the bottom left corner (the registry number on its wings is the date).

And so, I give you Born with Wings. A tribute to the freedom granted to all people, if they choose to use their minds, to go anywhere their ambition leads them; even if it is supposed to be impossible.

Finally the grass is finished! Definitely the most tedious portion of the painting, and yet once it was done, one of my favorites. The model was standing on a small hill of green, well trimmed grass in the reference photos, so I had to do a bit of creative extrapolation with the way the blades crossed in front of her feet when I painted the field grass in the painting. Once the main effect of the grass was complete (which in the foreground meant painting pretty much every blade) I had a lot of fun painting the rogue blades and taller weeds that had gone to seed. That really finished of the background just the way I wanted it.

I spent several hours doing little touch-ups to the rest of the painting: highlights on the face and hair, very subtle adjustments to the plane, etc. At this point the painting was basically finished. I actually sat back and looked at it for at least an hour, partly making sure everything looked right, but mostly just enjoying it.

The last few steps on a painting are always the most exciting. As major areas are finished the whole piece begins to work so much better. So painting the jacket was a lot of fun.

I began with a mid-tone background that conveyed only the basic form of the jacket and the largest creases. Sometimes concentrating too hard on smaller details at the beginning can cause the overall effect to be lost, For example, the area where the figure’s two fingers are supporting the jacket has a lot of little wrinkles, but a few of them are more important in that they reveal the underlying shape of the hand.

Next I went back and worked in the smaller details, the iridescence in the closest sleeve, and the buttons. The final step was the deepest shadows and brightest reflections.

The most obvious change in this image is the completion of the right foot. As mentioned before, the weight of the model is on her right leg, so the right foot must reflect that through its positioning.

What isn’t clear in the image is that a lot of touch-up work and finishing touches have been added to the shirt and pants, especially highlights in the shirt that couldn’t be painted while the shirt was wet. Also, the bracelet has been started (it will need similar touch-ups when it dries).

Unfortunately, most of the really subtle work won’t show in these small images or even in high quality reproductions, but the effect in the original makes a lot of difference.

I brought the grass line down to the bottom of the feet before finishing the legs, but no further so that the grass could overlap the toes in the foreground.

Painting the feet is delicate work. The position of the toes is actually quite important to the final feel of the pose, as slight shifts seem to suggest shifts in the weight of the figure. In this case the figure clearly has most of her weight on her right leg, and so the position of the left foot needs to reflect that it is on the ground, but not supporting weight. Even more delicate however is the painting of veins and musculature, especially on female figures. It can’t be left out without giving the figure a plastic, Barbie-like look, but it is VERY easy to over-do. One trick is to paint only highlights and no shadows on the most subtle of these features (or if they are in the shadow side, paint only shadows and no highlights).