Quent Cordair Fine Art

So how often do you get to say, “Oh, you know that painting I have been working on off and on for that last five months? Yeah, well, I finished that today.”? I don’t get to say that very often either but let me tell you, in case you don’t ever get the chance, it feels pretty good. Almost as good as standing back after putting the last brush stroke on the signature and thinking to yourself, “Wait a minute…it’s done! Looks pretty good too,” and then standing there staring at the thing for an hour.

The truth is the painting isn’t completely finished yet. I still have at least a full day of touch-up work (I mentioned before the need to re-touch the flames, etc.) and of course there is the varnish. But basically, what you see in these images is a finished piece. The touch-up work probably won’t show up on your monitor anyway…unless your monitor is 48” X 30” and I get a much better camera. Speaking of what you see here, and before I go on to ramble about the various bits I have been working on the past few days, let me explain a little about the images which accompany this post. First of all, these images were taken with a medium grade (by today’s standards) digital camera in indoor, artificial light with a bit of diffused sunlight striking through window blinds from the side. This means that not only are the colors not quite true to the original, they may actually be wildly inaccurate (again depending on the quality of your monitor). The sideways quality of the light tends to exaggerate the texture of the paint and lighten the values of the colors closest to the window (the left side of the image). There may also be some distortion of the shape of the painting…blah, blah, blah…but then you have all taken photos, so there you go. Another concern is the various states of dryness of the paint. Different pigments dry with different surface qualities. For example, as mentioned before, the areas of the painting containing a lot of ivory black will be considerably more matte when dry than the rest of the painting. Matte paint scatters more light and looks much lighter in these images than it will once the painting is varnished. After the varnish is dry, and before I ship the piece, I will have it professionally photographed, and a transparency made. Once scanned in the transparency will yield a more accurate digital image for the gallery’s website.

So, back to the painting. Three images are included with this post. I have included a full view of the entire piece, a close-up of the figure, and a detail of the signature, which I will discuss later. The major changes since the last post are the completion of the figure and the pillow.

I don’t think there is much to say about the feet other than this: feet are weird. Don’t believe me? Try painting some. If you get them just right no one notices… but if they are the slightest bit off all you hear is, “So what’s the deal with those freak feet?” The pants on the other hand were a real treat to paint. They took a bit of time but I couldn’t be more pleased with the result. The biggest challenge with the pants was the color. The model was wearing deep burgundy pants with a pink stripe in the reference photos. I felt that the composition required something a bit more subdued for the large area of the pants, so I went with an earth tone grey. (Also, I think the burgundy would have been weird against the reddish tones of the leather chair.) I also wanted to keep things interesting so I played off the fire by making the stripes bright orange.

The book was comparatively easy to paint, but let me nip the obvious question of what the figure is reading in the bud right now. I can’t see the cover either, so it must not be very important to the theme (either that or I really goofed).

The pillow seems like a small detail but I’m proud of the way it turned out. It was once burgundy as well, but I think it is much nicer in its current orange/gold state. What I did manage to get from the reference material, other than the basic shape, was the sort of fuzzy softness of the thing.

I mentioned earlier that the third image is a detail of the signature. I have been signing each major painting with a version of what has become my monogram… a lower case ‘b’. Each time I have tried to find a way to make the ‘b’ fit the particular painting it adorns by either mimicking the theme or by being composed of objects specific to the piece. I have painted ‘b’s made of wood, built out of blocks, shaped like airplanes or rockets, ‘b’s built into skyscrapers or skylines, sketched out in blueprints, painted on walls or stamped into construction equipment, and on and on. For this painting I considered a stone ‘b’ to match the fireplace, a ‘b’ made out of books or a chapter heading type ‘b’ that you might find in a book. I considered a leather ‘b’. In the end however, the idea of a ‘b’ made out of fire was just too cool to pass up. I have received a lot of feedback, both positive and negative, concerning the large logo-like signatures on my paintings, but I really like them. I am proud of the things I paint.

I will send in one last post on this piece once I have the transparencies back from the photographer. Until then, I encourage anyone with a question or comment about the piece to send it in. I have enjoyed participating in the “Artist’s Studio”. It has given me a chance to take an outside look at a piece while working on it, and to critically analyze some of my thinking and processes as the piece has progressed. I hope to have the chance share more of my upcoming work in the same way.

Well, I was a little concerned that with the arrival of the baby, work would slow down on this piece (as if it could get any slower that it was during the whole fireplace fiasco), but, as you can see, things are actually moving along quite a bit faster. I had images of the piece ready to go with just the hair and the shirt finished, but since I didn’t get around to writing any commentary, I decided to go ahead with this more current set of images (there should be two…I will elaborate..).

The colors used for the skin tones are mainly earth tones (burnt umber, yellow ocher, ivory black…a bit of cad red…not an earth tone), and they dry really fast. I mean literally that without the use of chemical driers (which I strongly recommend staying away from if you want your paintings to be around in 100 years) the face was dry to the touch the day after it was finished….and that is pretty fast when you are talking oil colors. What this means is that I was able to dive right into painting the hair and the shirt without worrying too much about damaging any work I had done on the face. (It also means that when painting the flesh tones I have about a day to finish what I am working on if I want to be able to blend into a wet coat of oil…..no pressure) The hair went very quickly, as is usually the case with dark hair. I decided to continue with the stylization of the figure, and exaggerate the whips and curls of hair around the face. I also added a touch of red to the hair color to bring it into the same color range as the chair and the stonework.

The next big project was the shirt. It was a bit of a toss-up weather to paint it or the arms first, but I was curious to see if the reflected light on the right side of the face would look right next to the bright fabric of the shirt, so the shirt won. Painting clothing is a bit more delicate than it may seem. Although the folds and wrinkles in the cloth may seem almost random, they speak volumes about the shape of the figure underneath them. It is actually quite surprising what a difference a wrinkle in the wrong place can do. The model was wearing a bright white shirt in the reference photos, but I thought a subtle lavender would be a bit more feminine, so I tweaked the color a bit. I also added a considerable amount of cad yellow to the highlight color to give a bit more of a firelight effect.

The arms and hands are the most recently completed elements in these images. They were painted in exactly the same fashion as the face, and with the same adjustments to the e colors to fit the lighting of the piece. I exaggerated the lighting on the figures left hand (the right side of the image) to add a bit of depth and interest. I actually really enjoy painting the hands. I think they can be almost as expressive as the face. I am particularly pleased with the hand holding the book.

Now, the reason I included two images with this update is that they will show different aspects of the progress of the piece. The large, wide angle image of the entire piece shows how, now that the colors of the shirt and arms are in place, the overall composition is beginning to work. The painting is more balanced. The close-up of the figure allows you to see the detail work in the shirt, hair, and arms better, and shows the effect the finished hair has on the look of the face.

Sequentially, the rest of the painting should be completed as follows: the feet, the book, the pillow, and finally the pants. After that there will be some touch ups and minor adjustments…but for the most part the piece will be finished.

After spending so much time working on the background, it is always a great pleasure to finally get to paint the figure. After all, without the girl in the chair, this would just be a painting of some room with a fire in it. The figure puts the other elements of the painting into context, and gives them a specific purpose. The fire is now not just a fire in a room, but a luxurious source of warmth and light to relax and read in.

I almost always begin by painting the face. There are plenty of technical reasons why this is usually the case, (most having to do with the overlapping of the hair and shirt etc.) but I also like to have the face finished to set the tone for the rest of the figure. This painting is a bit more stylized than most of my work (with the exception of a new height) and so required a bit more stylized figure. More and more often I will use the reference material to sketch the face, get the proportions correct, lay out the basic values and begin the painting, but then, as the face takes shape, put the reference away and finish without it. It is much easier to focus on the essential elements of the expression and the mood of the figure when I am not concentrating on each little freckle the model may have. If there is something I can’t quite work out, I can always get the reference photos back out and consult them. To try and get the effect of the firelight in this painting, I mixed the colors based on those in the fire, and on previous figure painting experience, and not based on the reference material at all. (The reference photos were taken in artificial white light, not firelight.)

With each painting this process gets a little easier, and I am happier with the results. Not always right away, in fact the face tends to get repainted or reworked more than just about any other part of the painting…but the end results are what matters. The next step will be to finish the hair and begin work on the rest of the skin tones.

The last few days I have been doing a little work on the chair. Originally, I had a subtle Victorian print, cloth upholstery in mind, but as the rest of the room neared completion, I started thinking about leather. I was worried that with the texture of the stone and the wood grain in the floor, the fancy fabric might be a bit too busy. Also, the simple luxury of the leather seemed a bit more in line with the style of the room. I started with a few pictures of different leathers, but as I got into the process, I found that it was really pretty easy to convert the cloth chair into leather. The biggest difference is the high level of reflection on the leather’s surface. With a little experimentation I found that simple enough depict. The tricky bit was the squished bit of cushion under the figure’s knees. The wrinkles created in the cloth cushion the model was sitting in the reference photo didn’t look right in the leather cushion. I found some examples of leather wrinkles, and tried to use them to work out the difference. It took a bit of work, but in the end it worked out.

In the digital photo you are seeing, the chair appears to have a much higher level of contrast than the foreground stonework etc. This is due mostly to the freshness of the paint on the chair. One of the main colors used in both the stone and the chair is ivory black, which tends to dull quite a bit on drying. When the piece is finished, a rich oil layer over the darker colors, and eventually the varnish will restore all of the blacks to their blackest, and even out the contrast in the entire piece. The varnish will also even out some of the distracting effects of the light reflecting differently off brush strokes in the walls etc.

The fire is, for the most part, finished. For reference material, I was able to find several different images of fires burning in various fireplaces, but not a fire I liked in a fireplace I liked, so as with most of the rest of the background, I combined elements from the various images, and filled in the rest with what seemed to look right to me. I blocked in all of the light colors first, the basic colors for the bricks, and a bright yellow-white for the shape of the flames. Next I went back over the bricks with the darker tones, adding shadows and texture where necessary. I used a very bright mixture of cadmium yellow, a hint of cadmium red, and titanium white as well as pure titanium white to add shape and varying degrees of brightness to the fire (Titanium white dries slowly, and has a tendency to become slightly more transparent when dry…so I will probably have to paint in at least one more layer of white over the flames later on). Next I painted the log in front of the flames using a technique very similar to the one used to paint the stones of the fireplace. When the log was finished, I painted the coals on the floor and the concrete of the floor. The shadows and the foreground coals were some of the areas for which I had no good reference material, but I think they ended up looking great. The wrought iron grate was painted last (it is in the extreme foreground, and is mostly black…it is usually a good idea to paint the darkest colors toward the end if you are working wet on wet, as I was.) After everything was basically in place, I went back with the darkest darks and added the deepest shadows to the bricks, the coals, the log, etc. I also brightened as much of the highlights as I could, with the paint still wet. After the rest of the painting is finished, or if I have some time while waiting for elements of the chair or figure to dry, I will do some minor touchups to the flames and the bricks (both the ones inside the firebox and the ones just around the outside) but they will be subtle enough that they most likely will not show up in a digital image.

The chair is next……