Quent Cordair Fine Art

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.

Tags: Bryan Larsen, Winter Evening

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 7th, 2004 at 6:29 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.