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Garden Solace: Step 6

Garden Solace

I know I know I know. Please calm down. I did not just finish the whole painting. There are (unfortunately) not any oil painting faeries who will sneak into your studio during the night and finish your work if you leave them a shiny nickel or a handful of teeth (gross. Who comes up with these superstitions, anyway?).

All I’ve done is chopped in the figure. I had to do it all at once so I could maintain an even blend between all her parts. Remember how evenly-blended transitions between areas are important? Don’t make me mention the sock-puppets again. (Oops. I just did. Sorry). If I don’t blend her parts, I risk hard lines and textural unevenness between the various elements. Bad for unity. This is particularly important for the areas where her hair and flesh come in contact. If I don’t do this, she’ll look like she’s having a bad wig day. (You Revolutionary War re-enactment enthusiasts out there will know what I mean)

Just as we did with the background, this stage is an approximation of the colors and values that are predicted to be in the final work-up of the figure. If you’re predilection is for Impressionistic paintings, then you can stop right here and be fairly happy with your work, I believe. But if you prefer Realism, you have some more work to do.

I’ve included a close-up of the face so you can see just how loose the chop here really is. Maybe I should become an Impressionist after all. My friend Cervesa says it’s a good idea. She talks like that when she gets lonely. What do you think? No? Well okay. We’ll go ahead and turn it into a Realist painting then.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Garden Solace. 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."