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First Heat: Step 12

First Heat

All of the major elements of the background are now blocked in. The beam against which the figure is leaning went surprisingly well considering that I had no reference material for it at all. It helps that most of it will be in shadow. As you can tell, having all of the basic colors in place makes it a lot easier to see what is going on with the lighting. As I proceed to paint in the final shadows, highlights, atmospheric effects and other details, I will be able to adjust them based on the context of the entire background. This will give the final image a more coherent and realistic feel. In the same way, having the background environment complete before I paint the figure will allow me to change the color and intensity of the lighting to make it appear as if the figure is being illuminated by the light of the super-heated metal. When working from so many different sources, you have to rely both on what you can see in the reference material, and on what your brain tells you looks correct on the canvas. The more complete the painting, the more you can see what is working and what needs to be changed. As I eventually make the final touch-ups to the painting, I will not refer to the scrap at all.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 14th, 2005 at 10:31 am and is filed under First Heat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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About Bryan Larsen ~

Bryan Larsen

"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."