Quent Cordair Fine Art

Under-painting

Because I wanted the lighting for this painting to be quite dramatic, I decided to use a technique I haven’t used in years…an under-painting. An under-painting is basically a monochromatic painting of the entire composition that goes underneath the full-colored layers of paint that make up the final image. Why go to all the work? The under-painting allows me to lay out all of the values for the painting ahead of time, and much as the careful drawing saves me time later by solving all of the shape, proportion, perspective and line problems, it saves me time by solving all of the lighting problems. Between the drawing and the under-painting, all that I really have to worry about as I paint the over-painting is the color.

In order to keep things archival, an under-painting has to follow the rich over lean rule. In general, no layer of paint should have a higher oil content than the one that goes on top of it. This helps prevent cracking of the top layers of paint. For the same reason, it is also a good idea to try and use quick-drying pigments that are flexible when dry in lower layers of paint. Keeping these two things in mind, I used Burnt Umber, Raw umber and a little Ivory Black, all thinned with turpentine as opposed to linseed oil. Because the canvas was already tinted slightly, and because the pigment mix I used was not quite as dark as pure black, I also left myself a little room to tweak the shadows and really pop a few highlighted areas.

As you can see, the under-painting is a fairly complete image. I can tell exactly what’s going on, and already have a feel for how the light is going to work. I actually really like the effect too…it has a lovely antique sort of feel to it.

‘Navigator’ Artist’s Studio Steps

Step 1: Preparation

Welcome back to The Artist’s Studio! I have recently completed what I can honestly say is one of my personal favorite paintings, ‘Navigator’. It’s development represents what, to me, is an almost ideal progression for an artist working in my style, and as such, I thought it would be an interesting piece to walk through from conception to completion. It may sound strange, although it has happened to me several times, but the idea for this painting actually occurred to me while shooting scrap for another painting. The details of the other composition are best left for later (particularly if they do eventually become a painting of their own), but the essential details are as follows.

I had assembled various props for a photo-shoot with my daughter as the model. My daughter, at the time, was just under three years old…a particularly difficult age to work with in general, as any parent will verify, but specifically so as far as modeling for paintings is concerned. I have found that it is often useful to have a ‘Model Wrangler’ on hand for such endeavors….meaning, a person who is not me, who the model can interact with, and who can take cues from me as to how to influence the mood and actions of the model. In this case, the “Model Wrangler’ was my son, seven years old, and a favorite person of my daughter. I will skip over the mundane and numerous detail of the progression of events. In summary, at one point my son was demonstrating a pose that might look like fun for my daughter to take, just so…in front of the window. The props were different, but the pose and the lighting suddenly suggested to me a vague idea I had kept on the back burner for some years: a young boy aspiring to travel the stars. Anyone familiar with my work should know I am an admitted space nut, and an eternal optimist. The two characteristics are bound to lead to composition like this one. Anyway, I immediately let my daughter have a break, rummaged through the house for appropriate props, and shot a dozen or so photos of my son. This charcoal sketch was the first actual composition to result:

I loved the idea, but wasn’t really sold on the actual composition…at least not from a visual standpoint. I had almost resolved to re-shoot the scrap (artist jargon for photographic reference material), when I realized that cropping the scene into a square solved almost every compositional problem. Golden-mean ratios popped up everywhere, diagonals throughout the composition all seemed to line up, and I got a really nice division between lights and darks that appealed to me. Using one photograph as the basis for the pose, and multiple others as details for hands, globe, and star-scape etc., I came up with the following to-scale drawing:

One of my favorite canvas sizes is 18 inches by 30 inches. It makes for a nice, midrange painting with good aspect ratios in both landscape and portrait configurations…and I had several blank canvasses of that size on hand. But this time, I needed a square. It just so happened that I had four stretcher bars hanging around in the studio which had been intended for canvasses that I never ended up stretching. There had, historically, been eight…four of them provided the bones for ‘Study for the Triumph of Icarus’ in 2009…my most recent square composition. I found a scrap of linen, stretched and primed a 20×20 surface, and using an oil transfer technique I moved my scale drawing from paper to the new canvas:

Painting hair is always a lot of fun, and in this case doubly so since it filled in all the awkward gaps left in the blouse and neck, and pulled the entire figure together. The real trick with hair, as with drapery, is to keep in the back of your mind, while painting all the interesting separate curls and waves, that there is an underlying form to which they all have to conform. It’s pretty easy to accidentally exaggerate a shape and give the figure an unfortunate lump on the head…or worse…a weird depression. Contrast and extreme value control is important too. Too much evenly distributed contrast, and the hair looks wet and stringy. Too liberal an expression of the highlights and the effect is flat and boring. It’s actually very much like painting a metallic object. That one highlight in just the right place makes all the difference.
I am always a little tempted to leave certain paintings in exactly this state of completion. There’s something intriguing about the finished figure emerging from the sketched in, textured canvas.

But I’m always more interested in giving my figures some sort of context….
As I mentioned earlier, this piece was painted under a pretty tight deadline, so I kept the background simple. Clouds, sky and concrete are all things I like to paint, and can paint quickly. And it’s no secret that I like the contrast between the architectural and the organic. So, this young woman is suddenly sitting on a concrete wall in the clouds. But, she is obviously looking at something…. At times it is fun to leave the object of a figure’s attention up to the viewer’s imagination, but in this case, the overall composition also needed a smaller shape to balance the figure, and a bit of color. The butterfly provided both, as well as giving me a chance to break out the serious cadmium reds and oranges, and extending the juxtaposition of organic beauty and structure against the geometric, man made architecture. It also gave the painting a title with a subtle double meaning.

And there you have it! A simple figure painting, with a simple theme…but one that, I think, turned out beautifully.

As always, I really look forward to any questions and/or comments, either on this piece in particular or on more general art related topics.
Thanks for reading!

I looked forward to working on the drapery for this painting. It was simple, but had enough extra decoration and texture to make it interesting. It’s also always a lot of fun to paint drapery when it is responsible for revealing enough of the figure’s form that it becomes an important part of the pose. Rather than working by blocking in the entire blouse and skirt, and then refining the details in successive layers of paint, I worked by sections…finishing each as I went along.

A final pass was made over the entire outfit to level out the colors, refine details and punch up the deep shadows and highlights.

Incidentally, you may have noticed that I also painted the gold, braided bracelets somewhere in there. Metallic and glass objects are always fun to work on, largely because the lighting and coloration is usually a surprise. They provide an excellent opportunity to practice observation and color matching skills.

With the face finished, I decided to go ahead and paint the remaining flesh tones. Moving in a general right to left, top to bottom direction to make it easier to keep my hand out of the wet paint, I proceeded in pretty much the same way as with the face. Here I am about halfway through the figure’s left hand. The work here is a little loose and rough, and will be tightened up somewhat as I go, but It won’t need quite the same level of polish as the face. The black outline like area is a little trick I use when painting anatomy that overlaps other areas of the painting that haven’t been painted yet. I can slightly soften the edges of the arm, for example, by blending into the darker paint. When I come back and paint the shirt later, I can then paint up to the soft edge of the arm.

And here is the painting once all of the skin has been painted. I have found that it really help to work on one particular element of a painting all at once…flesh, fabric, whatever. Once I’m in the groove with a particular technique, I can move a lot faster and, I think, do a better job.

Now I’m ready to start painting drapery. The hair I will save for later, since it overlaps the blouse in such a complicated way.