Skip to content • Skip to gallery information

Quent Cordair Fine Art

Click to chat with
a gallery representative
« Winter Evening: Step 14
Winter Evening: Step 16 »

Winter Evening: Step 15

The most obvious change since the last post is the completion of the hearth. The hearth stones were painted in much the same way as the rest of the fireplace but with a concrete tile texture instead of rough stone. I have to say I have really enjoyed painting the stone in this piece, and am very happy with the way it has turned out.

After the hearth was basically finished, I spent a great deal of time touching up the rest of the fireplace, especially the mantle, by adding highlights all in one color (to bring the different colored stones together) and sharpening edges with deep shadow tones.

With the fireplace finished (except for the fire) I was still not happy with the wall behind the figure. It seemed too smooth and flat, almost unfinished compared with the rich texture of the stone and hardwood. I decided to paint a concrete support into the corner of the room. It adds just enough detail to the wall to bring the piece together, and I like the slightly industrial construction feeling it adds to the architecture of the room. In any case, I am now ready to begin work on the interior of the fireplace, and the fire itself. As important as the figure is in any figurative work, I really think that the execution of the fire in this piece will make or break the painting…so I am going to give it quite a bit of attention. The first step will definitely be finding a good source of reference material.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 19th, 2004 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Winter Evening. 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.

Leave a Reply

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."