Autumn Landscape...process

I actually finished this piece before Christmas, I just didn't get round to posting it on the blog. It began as a class demo, but as is my way, if I'm into it, I'll finish it off in my own time. I'm pretty happy with the depth I've managed to convey, which is something that remained elusive to me for a long time. It ended up being my mothers Christmas present in the end.

Waterfall study process...

Last semester I did a demo of me painting a waterfall in oil, here is the method I followed. I was very careful to include each stage of the process for my students; initial thumbnail sketches to figure out composition, design, values, etc. These drawings are probably the most important stage of the whole process, not to sound hyperbolic. After that I like to do a couple of colour studies to establish the basic colour world of my image before I dive in (which is what I used to do with my work in university, much to the distress of my tutors). After those steps, I feel better prepared for the main event, and have more confidence in general about how I'm going to go about it all. Now, I tone my surface with a neutral like Raw Umber or Burnt Sienna. You can tone your 'ground' with whatever you like, but make sure it makes sense for the specific painting you're working on (for example, I wouldn't use bright red for something like a naturalistic waterfall). Then it's time to paint, outlining my basic shapes first, then blocking in my most obvious values, from dark to light usually...

Memento Mori process...

I seem to have painted a few skulls in the last year or so. It wasn't planned like that, they've all been commissions of one sort or another. Painting skulls is enjoyable, and they are certainly challenging, but I don't plan on any more in the foreseeable future. It was a huge advantage to set the skull up in front of me, with a strong, consistent light source, and paint from life. Photos have their advantages, and sometimes you don't have much of a choice, but nothing beats painting from direct observation. I used to mostly mix my skin tones from the complementary pairing of red and green, but I tried out a new combination of pigments for this one- cadmium red, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, and flake white...

Torous: Mindfield album cover process...

This was another highly collaborative effort with the rock band Torous. This is my third illustration in response to their music, and each time I've benefited from exploring various ideas with the band. It really felt like a symbiotic relationship, and the journey of the image, as it morphed from one concept to the next, evolved painlessly. That's not to say we struck on the final idea immediately, not at all. But the creative process was so enjoyable, it always seemed like the solution was 'just around the corner'. As usual, I've attached some of the earlier ideas that were eventually discarded. It interests me to see those initial sketches in comparison to the final image, as although they didn't make the final cut, they are imbued with a sense of enquiry and are therefore not altogether irrelevant to the final design. The background was rendered with acrylic glazes, whilst the main event was painted in oils using a limited palette.