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 This is now the abode of the slide shows. The single right arrow starts an automatic cycle, the double right arrow can be used to cycle through manually. The older process photo series have moved to the process archive, see link above.
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I'm interested in exploring the materials and techniques of older painting in order to work more closely with the craft, discover more about what is possible within the context of traditional materials. The idea is to not to ape but create a living analogue of an older process. Below are several slide shows illustrating various aspects of this as it's developed. For more about the traditional chalk putty medium mentioned below please visit theliving craft page. Scroll down a bit for various putty photos and formulas.
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| broken to smooth surface illustration |
Small alla prima study of poppies from an old photo, originally done from life long ago. It's interesting now and then to revisit a more iconic iconic image from the past, see what changes in the execution. Shows how a putty couch can be used to begin with a broken surface, alternating warm and cool tones until the paint blends naturally. This of course could be stopped at a more broken or Impressionist place. A key to working fast like this is mixing the general colors on the palette first, about a dozen including a generic color of light and shadow. As such, no pure white was ever used in this painting, brightness is created optically, through shifts in temperature. Which has always proven to make things much simpler. 10.5 x 9.5 inches, oil on gessoed linen over panel.
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1) Drawing is kept simple to facilitate interesting edges. Dense putty is troweled thinly onto entire panel.
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| paint from putty |
For a while I've thought about using the putty medium directly to make paint with dry pigments on the palette. As usual, this proved a little more complex in practice than in theory, but I was able to pull the image below together within the confines of the alla prima code. Barely, ran into lots of issues as you'll see. But the system proved resourceful, a good omen. Just used six colors and white, re-made the paint several times, learned more as I went. A larger size, 12x16 inches, beginning from an actual drawing again. This system seems to offer the potential for a more finished painting which still has the alla prima punch.
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1) Simple red chalk drawing on gesso, just the general outlines.
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| silica gel couch |
Last year, 2007, I made many different putty variations. One that was interesting but which I didn't quite get at first was a transparent gel made with oil and fumed silica. Below is a test study using this gel as a couch over a warm, midtone ground. The paint itself is still extended with the chalk putty, but it is sitting in a firm but slippery layer of the gel.
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1) Slidey silica gel couch over midtone ground with transparent darks. I have no idea what this stuff is going to be like.
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| restoration |
Sometimes a panel doesn't work out, If it's an outdoor painting I can go back to the same spot and try again, or wait a year or so and grind it back. The image here had tons of paint on it, so I ground it back first, almost flat. Next is covering the old painting with a dense, dry putty, then put on the silica gel couch over that: it's more slippery, so it doesn't pick-up much. The idea with the style is to make a single thick and juicy layer of paint that will make sure the older painting never strikes through. Palette is earth colors and the transparent oxides.
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1) Covering up the old painting, dense putty with gold ochre and lead white.
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| the simplest triad |
Below is an example of a study done with the simplest triad, yellow earth, red earth, and black, colors which are at the foundation of many older paintings. I used Blockx Yellow Ochre, Doak's Tuscan Red, and Blockx Ivory Black for this, all cut with chalk putty, plus a few viscosities of white.
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1) Another clean-up pass, dry paint, no couch.
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| direct method, first layer |
Below is a slideshow of the direct method: no color mixing, used with the putty medium in the first layer of a landscape. A dark, transparent triad of ultramarine blue, anthraquinone crimson, and raw sienna dark is used in the beginning. Then some white and a lighter but more opaque triad of manganese blue, golden ochre, and yellow ochre is added.
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1) first pass, dark sienna.
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| peony on blue |
An experiment to see how much can be built into a single layer in terms of color and viscosity shifts.
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1) Began with a stiff putty toned with cobalt blue, then carved back into it for the lights. Kept it loose.
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Modifying the modernist malaise.
