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Archive for the ‘Born With Wings’ Category

Born With Wings: Step 3

Saturday, November 29th, 2003

Born With Wings

Once the basic proportions were transferred onto the canvas from the scale drawing, I sketched in the details. I find that the better I sketch in the details on the canvas, the smoother the painting proceeds. In this case, I did a rough sketch in red, and then refined the sketch in black once I had everything worked out.

The canvas is linen sized with rabbit skin glue and primed with flake white oil tinted with burnt umber to give a medium tone and speed the dry time.

Born With Wings: Step 2

Thursday, November 27th, 2003

Born With Wings

From the scrap taken of the model and some reference pictures of a plane I liked the look of, I sketched out the composition at ¼ scale. I then used a grid system to transfer the sketch onto the canvas.

The most obvious change from the compositional sketch is the plane itself. I thought the top-wing plane felt a little too ‘crop-dusterish’, and wanted something more exotic. The plane I ended up using is based on a plane made by Ryan Aircraft intended for civilian use by fighter pilots returning home after WW2.

Born With Wings: Step 1

Tuesday, November 25th, 2003

Born With Wings

After experimenting with several different poses for the figure and different positions relative to the plane, this is the composition I finally settled on. The figure would be looking into the sky in anticipation, before boarding the plane. For the model, I had in mind our veterinarian who I thought had the perfect look. I sent her a letter about the piece along with a copy of this sketch and finally convinced her to sit for the scrap photos..

About Bryan Larsen ~

Bryan Larsen

"I was born on February 12, 1975, and have been drawing as long as I can remember. By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist, although at the time I didn't have a clear idea of how exactly I would use my talents to make a living.

"As I continued studying art, I began to suspect that fine visual art was dead. No one seemed interested in teaching students how to draw well, or paint well. More often than not, my own skills exceeded those of my instructors.

"The only field left that seemed to require good drawing, painting, and compositional skills was illustration, and therefore I began studying illustration at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I became even more convinced that I had made the right decision in staying away from fine art as I endured course after course of required "drawing" and "painting" classes in which instructors required me to draw with "less focus", or use ridiculous materials such as shellac, glue, sand, salt, etc.

"My second year at Utah State, I met Damon Denys. In discussing Art with him I realized that there were other people who believed that technique and subject matter were indispensable components of any work of art. I then decided that I would work to develop my own painting skills with the purpose of creating artwork that I considered worthy of being called Fine Art.

"Since that time, I have studied on my own: Drawing from live models to learn the human form, studying proper painting techniques from any source I could find ample reason to trust, and developing a philosophy of Art based on reason, and life on earth.

"My goal is to portray the heroic and romantic in human nature and human achievement in a realistic style and a modern setting. I place particular emphasis on composition, technique, realistic detail, proper craftsmanship and consistency of style."