Through His Dark Paradise...process

This is another piece for what I aim will be part of an exhibition idea I have. This is the 4th one in the theme, although they don't necessarily run in sequence. This was fairly slow work at times, but it's satisfying to see it finally come to fruition. As always I've included the various stages to illustrate its progress. It's graphite and coloured pencil on toned paper.

Figure study...process

This is the first time I've used charcoal powder, which is messy, but wonderful for blocking in large areas of tone, and building up the layers. This is one of my models, Paul, from the life drawing course. He always does superb poses; always considered and interesting. This one is based on a reference photo. I always start my life drawing studies with gesture, then I add more refinement to the contours, before blocking in tone, and finally adding more depth to the values. Definitely looking to do more of these in the not too distant future.

Behind Beauties Darkness....process

This is another personal piece to go with 'Gnarled' and 'Master of Carrion'. They're all part of a series I'm working on, and I should be adding to that soon, as I've got another one lined up. Yet again, I always had a pretty clear idea of how I wanted this to turn out. The initial sketchbook drawing is very close to the final image. Although you could argue the hand crushing the butterfly is a significant addition to the narrative.

The Ascent process...

I would have liked a little more time on this, but that is often the case. I had just over a week to get it done, so I had to take a couple of 'short-cuts' here and there. It's painted on oil paper which I very rarely use. It tends to be either canvas or board that I work on, but actually it felt fine after I primed it with Clear Gesso (this gave it a bit of 'tooth', as the paper was relatively smooth). Instead of starting with an imprimatura (a thin wash of colour, usually a neutral, to cover the whole image and set the basic mood), I blocked in the basic light and dark masses with a quick ebauche (a preliminary layer of semitransparent oil colour). Once I set down the basic value structure, I worked on the sky first, and gradually moved to the middle, and then foreground figure, and ended up painting the birds last. I think the motion blur on the birds is too subtle now in hindsight. I should have pushed that further. In fact, I would have liked to spend another day on the birds, but alas, the time just wasn't there. I used a double complementary pairing for this painting; for the background (including the buildings) I used orange and blue, and for the foreground I went with a more violet and yellow-orange approach.

"What Pain Owns" process...

This was inspired by a poem I read months ago. I don't know who the writer is, but I found it deeply moving. I did a very ragged thumbnail sketch after reading it, just to make sure the idea didn't slip away as they sometimes do. It then got neglected for a couple of weeks, before the sketch reminded me of it again. I proceeded to paint it immediately after that. I changed the direction of the light source in the end, amongst other things, but the essence of the idea remained the same. It's done almost entirely in acrylic, with a fleck of oil in the final layer of paint. I know it's not my best painting technically, but I do have a soft spot for it...