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First Heat: Step 14

First Heat  First Heat

Rather than sending in three or four posts for the detail work on the rest of the background, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I am a few days ahead of the ‘Artist’s Studio’ and send one comprehensive update. My motivation for doing this is that many of the changes would have been too subtle to notice on their own, but together they represent considerable progress on the piece. The glazing technique I am using over much of the background has the disadvantage (as far as my sending in images) of being highly reflective, making it difficult to get a good photograph of the painting. For this reason I have included four images with this post. The first is a straight forward, full shot of the piece. You can see how much the reflected light is interfering with the photo (especially in the upper, left corner). The second is also a straight on shot, but is a closer view of the pouring metal. In this image you can see more detail including the sparks, some of the atmospheric effects, rivets, etc. There is still quite a bit of glare on the left side. The third image shows the details of the crane, the beam and the sky. To get anything to show up clearly in this area (where the glaze is the wettest) I had to shoot the piece from an angle. This foreshortens the image, but at least you can see what’s going on. In particular, the colors are much better represented in this image than in any previous one. The fourth and final shot is also from an angle, but of the entire painting. Here you can get a feel for the overall color scheme of the piece.

First Heat   First Heat

In addition to fine tuning the colors and values of the background and painting in the details, I have also fixed the perspective problem with the big beam in the back wall of the mill (just below the windows) that was mentioned in a comment I received. There will be a few more, very minor touch-ups that will have to be made before the piece is finished, but I am going to save them for the end (allowing everything to dry) and move ahead with the figure. With this sort of painting it can be very easy to get caught up in every little detail, but at some point you just have to stop.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 19th, 2005 at 10:33 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."