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Once the figure is complete, I begin the same procedure with the elements that surround her. However, with the birds I decide that I want to lay down the sky around the forms first and then sweep the edges out of the forms and into the surrounding color in order to give the look of feathers.
Here you can see the darker values of the birds being painted. At this point the lightest areas are simply the warm canvas showing through.
The dress is built up in colors: Purple and blue in the cast shadows. Warm white in the highlights.
In those areas where the sunlight bounces back into shadowed sides of the folds, the cloth is painted in yellow, orange and touches of red for value shift. A small amount of warm green is allowed to reflect back into the cool shadows of her torso from the water below.
Again, as with the face, the thickest paint is reserved for the strongest highlights, where brushwork becomes more dominant.
The process continues on down the dress and the edges are worked into the surrounding landscape and sky. The softest edges in the painting are found on the light side of the girl’s torso where the value of her dress is close to that of the warm lower sky and the sun radiates off of her.
Because of the warm early evening sun, I accentuate the yellows on the lit side of the figure with accents of orange and red, and play up cool blues and purples in the shadows with small touches of reflected green from the water.
I then move on to the arms and hands in the same manner, working from blocked in washes to darks to lights and working my edges with the surrounding sky. The value contrast between the girl and the sky prevents any lost edges, but the edges remain soft and on the top of the arms and hands, some of the blue sky is allowed to reflect onto the skin.
At the same time, I begin to work into the shadows and highlights of the dress to develop my darkest darks and lightest lights as well as the warm and cool contrasts.
Once the Darks in an area are complete, I work the colors of the light areas and the transitions from light to shadow. I try to save my thickest areas of paint for the lightest areas. Though for me, none of my paint is especially thick or impasto.
Here you can see the head and neck near completion.
"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."
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