Quent Cordair Fine Art

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.

In this visit to the Artist’s Studio, I’ll be taking you through the creation of a little figure painting titled ‘Butterfly’. This piece was done for a show on realism, and was painted under a pretty short deadline. I wanted to do something relatively simple, and as I’m always fond of compositions which juxtapose the organic structure and beauty of the female figure with the completely different, austere, geometrical beauty of architectural elements, I decided to run with that.

As always, I started off with a detailed drawing of the figure. I’m working from several different photographs taken with slightly different exposures and from slightly different angles to give myself as much information to work from as possible in the absence of a live model. The drawing is done to scale, though slightly smaller than the final painting. Once it was finished, I had it blown up to full size, and then transferred it to the 24X24 inch canvas using an oil transfer. If you’re curious about the oil transfer process, please write in to the Artist’s Studio and I will be happy to elaborate in as much detail as you can handle!

When painting figures, I like to start with the face. It’s a complex feature which usually contains just about every variation of skin tones that will be present in the painting…and it sets the tone for the rest of the piece. It also allows me to connect a little better with the figure as opposed to painting a headless body first. The technique I’m using here involves painting each separate form on the face in one pass, applying as close to the final local color as possible as I move across each curved surface. It involves vary little blending on the canvas, although I do have to go back into an area occasionally to bring up a highlight or adjust the chroma (intensity) of the colors. (Again, I’d be happy to elaborate on this technique, it’s pros and cons etc. if anyone is interested.) Obviously, this technique requires an accurate drawing, and makes large changes far more difficult to make on the fly…but it does have its many advantages. One such advantage is that I can start and stop work if I need to. For example, this is where I had to leave the face after the first full day of work:

Here is the finished face. As you can see, I was able to pick up where I left off without any visible seam between the different days work, even though the paint from the first session was completely dry before I started the second.

I would love for this to be more of a two way discussion than just my running commentary. So if you do have questions or comments, even if you would like to remain anonymous, please write in. Let me know what you would like to hear more about.

Since the figure’s right arm overlaps all of the remaining drapery, I opted to save it for last. Over two long work days I painted the rest of the robe. It turned out to be a fun little exercise in value, since only a few areas are actually being lit by the main light source, and even those are nowhere near as bright as the small section directly under it. Also, because the fabric is white, and there is a lot of reflected light on the shadow side of the figure, even the darkest areas of the dress were much lighter in value than hair, the skin tones or the soon-to-be-painted background. So, all of the modeling of the form had to be accomplished with only a small range of values.

The right arm provided a similar challenge. Only a small section of the hand is in the light, and the overall values had to stay between those of the red scarf and the white dress. I am particularly pleased with the way the interaction between the right hand and thigh and the drapery lends some real solidity to the form.

I wanted to do something completely different with the background for this painting. As I mentioned at the beginning of this studio installment, I didn’t have anything in particular in mind for this composition. But as the figure began to take shape, the lighting increasingly suggested a nighttime scene. The week before I finished the figure, Sara and I visited a local gallery that has a lovely Koi pond in its courtyard. Sara suggested something like that would make a nice background for the painting. I decided to combine the two. The first step was to give the figure something to stand on. I was planning on putting lily pads in the pond, and I always love a bit of concrete in a painting, so again…I decided to combine the two ideas and paint a sort of concrete lily pad. Since I had no reference material for anything in the background other than a few photos of lily pads I found online, the concrete pad took a little fussing with before I was happy with it.

Next I decided to carefully block in some general colors for the sky, the silhouetted trees and the water. I also added a couple of skyscrapers off in the distance. I’ve had several people comment that the buildings seem out of place in this composition, but I disagree. I like the combination of the manmade architecture of the buildings and the concrete pad, and the natural elements of the pond and trees. Incidentally, this photo is a terrible representation of the color balance in the painting. The high contrast and the varying states of dryness and glossiness of the paint really gave my camera a hard time.

After the blocked in colors had dried a little, I went back and added some subtle detail to the water, a huge number of stars, and lights in the buildings. I painted the lily pads and then blocked in the silhouettes of the plants in the foreground. Again, this was all being done with really no reference material at all, so I spent a lot of time tweaking shapes and colors until things started to look right.

Once again, I allowed the background to dry, then I went in and further refined the shapes of trees, lily pads and reflections in the water. I added a few highlights in a couple of areas and some detail to a few of the foreground grasses and flowers that seemed as though they might fall in the light. Finally, I added some firefly lights in the trees and bushes across the pond.

In reference to the main light illuminating the figure, the stars, the fireflies and the distant city lights, I decided to call the painting ‘Night Light’. This image is a professional scan made after the painting had been allowed to dry and given a coat of varnish.

By now I also have final images and titles for the other two paintings in the group.
‘Liberty’

And ‘The Poet’.

So there you have it: three, very different paintings from start to finish. I am really happy with the way each of them turned out, but I have to admit that even though it started out as more of an experiment than the other two, ‘Night Light’ ended up being my favorite. From the beginning, I really liked the pose and the lighting, and I think the nighttime scenery added a really wonderful mood as well as a lot of contrast and visual depth to the composition.

I started these three paintings having just moved into a new studio space in Salt Lake City, UT. However, since finishing work on ‘Night Light’ and writing this studio step, I have moved into yet another new space in Los Alamos, NM. Before leaving, however, I was able to get some incredible scrap for a few new paintings. So check back in a few weeks for a new installment of the Artist’s Studio. In the mean time, I welcome any comments or questions on these three pieces or on art in general.

Thanks for reading!