Quent Cordair Fine Art

As you can see, this is truly a superior image to those I was able to capture with my digital camera. The colors here are very good, but there are many subtleties of the original painting that will never show up in a photograph. That being said, this is about as good as it will get on a computer screen. This image is large enough that I did not feel it necessary to include any detail shots.

Now that the painting is complete, and a good image of it is available for your scrutiny, I thought it would be appropriate to make some final comments. As has been discussed earlier in this forum, and as will be apparent to anyone familiar with the novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ by Ayn Rand, this painting is based on and was inspired by the character of Henry Rearden, an innovator in the science of metallurgy and the owner of a large steel company. I want to stress that this is not intended no be an illustration from the novel, but a separate piece of artwork on the same theme of individual achievement.

This painting has come a long way compositionally from its origins as an idea for a cover illustration for the book, and has presented a number of new challenges for me as an aspiring classical/romantic realist painter. The composition has required a considerable amount of interpretation on my part due to the poor quality of available reference material, and the complexity of the unique lighting in the piece. Now that the painting is finished, I am pleased to say that the results have exceeded my own expectation, especially with regard to the lighting effects and the color scheme of the piece. As with any interpretation of an abstract work of literary artistic greatness such as ‘Atlas Shrugged’ there are bound to be many people who have differing views regarding many aspects of this painting, and indeed, some of these differing views have already been expressed as comments in this forum. As an artist I can only present this representation of my own vision of individual achievement and greatness, and hope that those who view it find it inspiring. I appreciate all of the comments and questions that have been sent in, and I hope that my commentary and responses have been interesting and instructive. Thank you for visiting the ‘Artist’s Studio’ and please continue to check in on the latest works of art being produced here by myself and the other artists. I will be happy to address any last comments and questions regarding this or any of my paintings as you may have them.

The painting is finished. Glazing the overcoat and adding its final details went so quickly that I decided to move on to the face immediately. Because the hairstyle changed so much from the reference photos I took of the model, I found it easier to work on the face and the hair at the same time (something I normally don’t do). I took a big risk with this painting by changing the lighting on the face so dramatically. Not only did the color and intensity of the light change, but the angle of the light as well. This turned out to be an enormous challenge, particularly when combined with the integration of a hairstyle for which the reference material was shot from a different direction in yet another, different set of lighting conditions. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that there isn’t a single detail that didn’t get tweaked at least a little. As tricky as it was at times, I am really pleased with the way it turned out. In addition to finishing the figure, there were a few minor touch-ups to the rest of the painting that had to be made, although nothing that would show up in these small digital reproductions.

The images included with this post are the best I could get with the texture and gloss of the paint as it is. This is always more of a problem with darker colors. I ended up having to shoot the pictures in relatively dim light to minimize the glare, which is the reason they are so grainy. As always, I will be taking the piece to a professional photographer who will have the equipment to deal with the tricky paint surface and get very high quality photos. In the next post, I will include a full image of the painting as well as some details, all scanned from the transparency I will get back from the photographer. At that point I will make some final comments on the finished piece as well as answer any questions that have been received in the mean time.

Using the technique I discussed in the last post, I finished painting the first layer of the coat. By the time that was done the paint on the shirt and pants was dry enough for the glaze coat to be applied and the final shadows and highlights to be filled in. The next step will be to use the glazing technique on the overcoat. I had planned on darkening the coat quite a bit, but as I look at the overall painting, I like the contrast of the lighter color. To preserve it, I will use a lighter coat of glaze to paint the final details.

I have, in the past, always included images with these posts that show the progression of the painting after a major portion of new work has been completed. For this post, however, I had the presence of mind to stop work periodically and snap a few shots of the painting process. I wish now that I had taken the additional time to review each image on my computer screen before moving on because the color is quite a bit off, and much of the subtle detail does not show up well. Even so, I think the basic idea will be illustrated fairly well.

In the first image I have just begun a very rough blocking in of the general mid-tones and shapes of the sleeve. This both covers the area with color into which the finer details can be blended and preserves the work done in sketching out the folds and wrinkles in the fabric.

In the second image, most of the mid-tones are in place, and I have started blending in some of the darker shadows. During this entire process, I have to keep in mind that in order to keep a consistent feel through the whole painting, I will be using a glazing technique, just as in the background, to eventually add the final shadows and highlights. The glaze coat will darken all of the mid-tones and shadows, so at this stage they need to be painted slightly lighter than I want them to be in the finished piece. This also means that too much detail work now would be somewhat wasted. The shirt and pants will also get the glaze treatment.

It may be hard to pick out the change in the third image. At this point I decided to paint over the previous work done on the lapels of the jacket and paint all of the highlights at the same time. This area has been blocked in to match the sleeve.

In image four the major shadows have been blended into the base color. I usually work from mid-tones to shadows to highlights. Often an additional pass for the darkest shadows and brightest highlights follows, but in this case the glaze coat will accomplish the same thing. This stage is the best time to work out the finer details of the wrinkles and folds. Once the lighter paint (often thicker) of the highlights is blended in it is often difficult to make any major adjustments until the paint is dry.

In the last image the darkest shadows and the main highlights are in place and some blending between the layers has been done to pull everything together. The highlights are what really add the depth to the image. They are basically the result (in the real world) of the brightest, directional light source illuminating an object. Painting the highlights is a lot like turning on a light…the brighter the highlights with respect to the mid-tones and shadows, the more intense the light.

Work continues on the figure with the shirt and the overcoat. As with the pants, I am using colors from the brighter sections of the furnace and the molten metal to paint the highlights. I followed up on the changes to the beam as well, using less of the deeper reds and oranges of the background to keep some visual distance between the figure and the ladle. As usual, though it seems odd, the figure is proving to be much easier to paint than was the background. This is primarily due to the fact that I have much better reference material for the figure (it is in color and I am not combining as many images).