Quent Cordair Fine Art

And now, nothing up my sleeve… POOF! Let there be more detail in the background.

I could easily take the detail further now, but I can do it just as easily later. The advantage to doing it later is that it’s good to see the rest of the painting brought up to a more finished level before getting carried away. Remember, this is a somewhat more organic approach to painting than what I’ve shown here before. Let’s get some more of the painting up to this same level and then decide if we need to do any further fiddling.

Phase two of the underpainting now begins. Like I said before, the overall feeling of building up to your final detail in a series of steps is that you only have to sort out a small, very manageable and easily changeable amount of the composition at a time. It has a safe and secure feel to it, whereas the Xerox method (I’m not advocating against either approach) does feel a little like dumping the family fortune into a single security. You should have a very good idea of what you’re doing before you dive into it.

If you haven’t worked out a crystal clear idea of your composition, or if you don’t feel that you work well making final decisions as you go, then you’ll probably find this approach suits you better. I would say that I personally find this is a less stressful manner of working, but not necessarily one that produces better or worse results, per se. If you like paintings with a lot of paint texture on their surfaces, then this will allow you to control exactly how much texture your final painting has. I myself usually tend away from too much texture, but I confess it can be fun to play with it when painting wombats.

You can see that all I’ve really done here is to add more color and depth to the areas that I already mapped out in the first sweep. I’ve begun to sculpt more of the bushy tree bits in the background, as well as to get some initial sparkle in what will be my future flower beds. Working this way is actually a lot of fun, and I find that I often have to fight against the temptation to “fire in a happy little tree”.

You may notice that I’m not starting out with a gray-toned canvas, as usual. This is because I’d like to show you a slightly different approach that yields a similar effect. I’d describe it as a more organic approach, compared to the alternative of starting with a flat midtoned field and then putting all the finished detail in during the first sweep–the “Xerox” method, which actually works quite well, but can feel at times like you’re biting off a little more than you’d care to chew. Depending on your personal disposition, you may prefer an alternative, and so here you have one:

Instead of painting the whole canvas with a grayed mid-tone base, I instead leave it white. The goal here is to work in phases and build the composition up, refining it more in each phase. This is accomplished not only with the colors you choose, but with the size of brushes you wield as well. Since we’ll be starting with a basic “chop” (loosely chopping in the colors, that is), which is not at all refined, larger brushes are used. As each consecutive phase requires more detail, smaller brushes will then be used. Try to imagine you are tracking the elusive Saskwatch, who, from what I hear, is now living on some fantastic property somewhere in Washington State. He must have picked up a lot of Microsoft stock back in the early days to afford that–cleverness that would give credence to his wily ability to go undetected despite the best efforts of Mr. Spock to locate his whereabouts on those old TV programs from the 70’s… But, so, you’re on his trail and decide he must be somewhere in Washington. Sure, you could start by going over every inch with a fine tooth comb, but wouldn’t you be better off making some broad sweeps using more general tools (I don’t know, maybe a Ouija board?), and then adopting more precise equipment (a Snickers bar?) as you narrow your search down on the Microsoft headquarters… or, er, perhaps I’ve said too much. But you get the idea. Think big. Think Saskwatch. And remember. Saskwatch hates Ipods.

So the first sweep on the background will be a general placement of elements where they need to be. I’m also using grayed-out versions of the colors that will ultimately end up there. So instead of painting a flat gray field to start with, I’m actually painting a rough grayed version of the composition itself. This helps us because we’re biting off a lot less than in the Xerox method. We still have a lot of room to alter things and tweak them if needs be. But it also gives us a more accurate toned base over which to put our next layer. So not only do you get your toned base, but it comes with a blocked-in basic composition as well. The basic “feeling” of this, is that you only have to get your work halfway correct the first time around, and then you get to start with it halfway done when you begin to put the detail in on the next sweep. It may sound funny, but it actually does take some of the pressure out of the task, which is an alternative to the do-or-die feeling that the Xerox method sometimes has. You may find this suits you better. For those of you who like to fiddle around with your compositions before deciding exactly where to take them, then this method is also very handy. I’ve actually found that I like to use this method for backgrounds, and then revert to the Xerox method for my figures. So you can certainly mix and match to your heart’s delight, just beware of the texture differences that can occur if you’re laying your blocking layers in too thickly (Xeroxed areas tend to have little-to-no texture).

Personally, if I were a Saskwatch who had missed the boat on Microsoft, I’d be looking at the NBA. I’ve seen some of those players, and they have pretty big feet, but come on. I remember seeing a movie where the wolfman took up basketball. And even though he was small, he was really good. I’ll bet in one-on-one Saskwatch smokes that Wolfman into the ground. Of course, being mutually hirsute mythological beings, they’d probably join forces instead of fighting it out. With Saskwatch as center and Wolfman as point guard, I bet we’d see some serious basketball, if only we could track them down. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure Spock gave up the hunt a long time ago. Lazy Vulcans.

Hello again to any of my return viewers, and to any who might be tuning in to the Artist’s Studio here at Cordair.com for the first time.

It’s my pleasure to present for your viewing pleasure, the step-by-step creation of a figurative oil painting, which I am entitling Garden Solace, complete with my own ad nauseum commentary. I heard a great definition of “ad nauseum”, which went something like “what happens after you see the same commercial for the 15th time”. Luckily, I’ll be tapping these comments out on a laptop, which, due to the fact that it’s more difficult to type on these things than on the desktop to which I’m accustomed, will aid in keeping my verbosity at bay. I’m also brewing only two cups of coffee before beginning my commentary, as it is a well known fact that my brain immediately goes into stand-by mode when its supply of the dark nectar is cut off. This is for your protection.

The scene I’m presenting is yet another that takes its setting from the lovely botanical Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City, Utah, which are located in the hills above the University of Utah, overlooking Salt Lake Valley. This will be my final painting featuring Utah landscape as a backdrop, since I have recently fled the state and taken up temporary residence in Scottsdale, Arizona. No, I didn’t rob a train or get caught defiling religious statuary. My departure was actually motivated by a combination of wanderlust, health problems, and advice to get far away from cold temperatures. So I have, for the time being, become a Doc Holliday of sorts, sweating amongst the cacti and wondering if this dry, barren valley wasn’t the target of a nefarious tree-rustling operation that herded all the greenery off to northern Colorado back in the 1800s.

That said, let’s get down to business. My approach on this painting will differ a bit in parts from the one I used on Icarus, if you were here to follow the progress of that one. I often use different techniques to achieve similar results, and I like to do a little experimentation while working on paintings. This is just my way of feeling out alternative approaches in an effort to streamline and economize and learn, which is good business practice no matter what your business. I understand it may be confusing for the casual observer to see me take different approaches on different paintings, and that such a lack of simplification may impede learning, if learning is why you are here, but nevertheless, this is in fact the way I actually work. There are other reasons for using alternative approaches to achieve similar ends:

–First, the more techniques you learn, the better and more proficient an artist you become, giving you a broader skill base from which to draw upon in the execution of future works. It can never hurt a pianist to learn to play the fiddle, or the electric guitar, or even the Saxaboom, for that matter. (Here I go, already using musical metaphors again)

–Second, I have personally always preferred an approach that lets the subject dictate the techniques used. This is the opposite to a common approach, which I call “Method Painting”, where an artist learns a few tricks very well, keeps them in a bag at his side, and then uses those techniques and only those techniques for every subject he or she paints. Have you ever seen paintings with clouds that look like floating rocks, or flesh that resembles Malibu Barbie? These are generally the products of Method Painters. These painters are often exceptionally good at painting one particular thing, but struggle outside that subject because their techniques aren’t crafted for the demands of other subjects. The result is similar to pounding a square peg into a round hole, trying to force techniques to produce results they were never intended to produce. Now, we are all Method Painters in as much as we all have a limited number of techniques with which we are familiar or proficient. But Method Painting is also a mindset. This mindset can be avoided by keeping an open mind about your process (within archival demands). This is probably best described by the great Bruce Lee’s famous advice, (yes, I’m hitting the martial arts references early on as well) “be like water”. Now before you tune me out and dismiss me as a nut, try to think of it in less mystical-sounding terms: don’t focus on fixed techniques like a trained monkey, focus on dealing with problems as they arise in your work. Approach your painting as a creative problem-solver and not as an automaton with only 5 pre-programmed settings. To do this, you need to become as familiar as possible with your paint and your tools, and always be looking to familiarize yourself with more tools and more applications of paint, without it becoming a detriment to your primary focus. This does not mean you will necessarily end up drooling paint onto a canvas. Creativity is not necessarily the gateway drug to mania. It gets a bad rap that way. Be like water. But keep the paint out of your mouth, for your mother’s sake.

–Third, as I mentioned earlier, health problems have made it necessary for me to adjust my own practices, as certain materials are less friendly to me than others. If I had, up to this point, been painting with the approach of a Method Painter, my painting practice could very well be in a shambles at this time, as certain things have had to be removed from my bag of tricks. So there’s another reason to strive to be creative with your technical approach to painting. Creative, I would say, without violating archival practices, whenever possible. Creativity as a mindset.

The first step, as shown in the image provided, is simply to sketch the design onto the sized and primed support. The sizing and priming steps I’ll bypass, as they’ve been covered in detail before. I’ve addressed the issue of transferring your design to the canvas in my previous Artist’s Studio logs by saying that I tend to prefer the old-fashioned grid system approach. For variety’s sake (see above), this time I’ll just sketch the design onto the surface with a charcoal pencil, which is messy and time consuming in an endearing way that hearkens back to old studio practices, gas lamps, and black lung. Ah, the good old days. I don’t usually like this approach because it takes a lot more effort to make sure the composition gets onto the canvas in exactly the place you want it to be, and thus cuts into time that could be better spent reading by the pool with my good friend Cervesa. I’d never bother with this in a full-figure composition. But you… you should use this traditional method every time in every situation so you can say what a great artist you are. And always paint only from life. People love that. I, of course, would offer that Leonardo would have invented the camera himself if it were possible at that time, but what do I know? Maybe he did and they just haven’t released the book and film about it yet…

You can see that my sketch is far from definitive in its appearance, particularly the background. It’s not necessary for me to invest time in a highly detailed sketch (remember my friend Cervesa?) because this is a location that actually exists and I know what it looks like. Also, a design sketch on a painting’s surface is not the same as a sketch that is intended as a study or a stand-alone drawing. My main concern with sketching a painting design is to map out areas of general color and value. The chicken scratches in the bottom left corner are quite sufficient for me to state that this is to be a darker region than the area above it. My sketch is visual shorthand for my own future reference which may very well be unintelligible to others (as my handwriting so often tends to be as well). I gain nothing by adding more detail and really only waste time. But once again, you… you should always put in every detail because you’re a respectable artist and the people who will write art books about you after you die love that stuff. Do as I say, not as I do.

Finally, to keep all that carcinogenic goodness from getting mixed up in my paints and darkening them when I brush over the top of the sketched design, I first apply a fixative to the surface. Again, this is an additional time investment that could be bypassed by using something other than charcoal, or by just painting your design onto the canvas. If you use the charcoal method (and you should try it, at least once. You should also try washing your clothes the old-fashioned way, with a washboard, too. That way, every laundry day becomes a celebration of technology instead of a grim chore) you can use a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine as a thin wash to set it. Half and half should suffice. Since that’s impossible for me, I use a spray fixative that dries quickly and give it a day just to be safe.

Now where did Cervesa get herself off to…