Jumping Youngs-Grisaille Stage 2

Although you can see small bits of the orange imprimatura showing through, I now have paint completely covering the canvas on my grisaille or greyscale painting. Still much work to be done before I can begin adding color. They say the devil is in the details, but at least you can make out what is happening in the picture; three boys jumping in the air. I felt overwhelmed the last two painting sessions because I wanted to cover the imprimatura. My next session will hopefully be an emphasis on just one of the figures. Slow and steady wins the race!

Who Is It?

I decided to do another "Who is it?" This one is a little more difficult than the other, but maybe you might know... Post your answers below.

Jumping Youngs-Grisaille Stage 1

I marked lightest, darkest and mid-point value/tone ranges on my canvas and then proceeded to paint the grisaille. I have much work to do, but I'm happy to get some real shapes blocked in. This painting has much more detail than the Granpa Genoa and therefore it takes more time. As you see, I did not get the entire canvas covered in the grisaille and the imprimatura (in orange) is showing through.

October 1975

On the week of October 27th 1975 a virtually unheard of musician appeared simultaneously on the the covers of two of the biggest news magazines in the world. Do you know who it was? Post you answers in the comments below.

Vermeer or Rockwell?

Put these two masterpieces together and there's whiff of familiarity. The painting on the left is Little Street painted by Johannes Vermeer and the one on the right is Family Walking to Church by Norman Rockwell. It seems as though Rockwell was influenced by Vermeer, if not consciously, then at least sub-consciously. Whatdoyouthink?

G K Chesterton- On the Modern Man

‘But the new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.' (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1909)

Jumping Youngs-Drawing Cont.

Saving a Dime
Last night I lined out my drawing on the back of my tracing paper with charcoal. This saves me from having to buy carbon paper and doesn't make near the mess. Again, thank you Bill Martin over at Wet Canvas for such helpful ideas! What you see here of course is a mirror image of the picture because you're looking at the backside. I plan to tape the tracing paper over the canvas and retrace the image with a ball point pen. Hopefully the charcoal will stick.

Too Much Oil in the Mix
I began to be a little concerned today when my imprimatura was still not dry. I believe I added too much linseed oil. Those of you who paint know this is a big NO NO! The cardinal rule of painting is fat over lean. Yes, I know and that is what I hoped to do, but I "eyeballed" the amount and put too much linseed oil into the mix. Today I wiped down the entire canvas with Turps (got the house stinkin' before company came over!) and then I painted the imprimatura again, this time using almost a pure mixture of turps, (better safe than sorry).

Ooops! Big Goof Comes Home to Bite!

Tweny minutes later my imprimatura was dry! Hurray! I taped the tracing paper to the canvas and started to draw. Guess what? When I got to the far right edge, I ran out of room. The boy's hand was going off the canvas! Oh no! Remember a few days ago I mentioned I thought I stretched the canvas on lopsided stretchers? Yep, I did it, now I'm paying the price for not correcting a mistake I made days ago. I took the canvas off the stretchers along with about 200 staples, recut the wooden stretchers so they make a perfect 45 degree angle on the corners and then I stapled it all back together again. That's the reason for the white stripe on the side! Ugh! I've learned my lesson on this one.

Grisaille, Here We Come
At least I have a good square canvas to work with now and I'm delighted to have transfered my drawing onto the canvas. When I lay down imprimatura over that white stripe on the right side, I'll be ready to start my grisaille. Finally, I get to paint!

Vermeer-The Geographer

The Geographer by one of my heroes, Johannes Vermeer 1632-1675. I have been so interested in learning to glaze because I would like to capture this kind of beauty in my painting.

Jumping Youngs-Drawing Cont.

While waiting for my imprimatura to dry, I have considerably tweaked the original picture using a program call "Gimp." I was a little intimidated at first because for years, I've only used Microsoft Paint. Using Gimp I was able to zoom in, smudge and blend around the edges of the figures to such a degree that if I were to use a magnifying glass, I might be hard pressed to find evidence of this being a composite of five...count them again...FIVE different pictures. Click on picture to enlarge.

Jumping Youngs- Imprimatura Stage

Primer
I am so excited! I finally get to put oil onto the canvas. I combine a mixture of Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna with a touch of Titanium White in order to paint my imprimatura or ground. I mixed a lean medium containing 5 parts turpentine to 1 part linseed oil. The imprimatura primes the canvas. This not only gets rid of the stark whiteness, but also gives the real paint something to grab onto. My grisaille painting (black and white monochrome) will be a nice contrast to this almost orange color.


Smooth Operator
Prior to putting this initial stage of oil paint down, I applied five coats of gesso, sanding between coats. My goal was to make as smooth as surface as possible in order to be able to glaze. The problem I ran into with my previous painting was that the little particles of paint got trapped in the weave of the canvas. This created something like pixeling effect, (little spots). So in honor of the smoothness I was striving for, I went to Pandora.com and entered the song Smooth Operator. Let's just say I enjoy painting!

My Favorite T-Shirt
I was able to persuade my lovely wife to come away from the Sunday paper to snap this picture of me. Of course this was not the easiest thing to do because she did not like taking a picture of me with my "comfortable" T-Shirt. (notice bleach spot on shoulder), but the blue does nicely compliment the color of the canvas, does it not? In the picture I am literally beating the canvas with the soft brush to eliminate as many brush strokes as possible. I'll save the impasto (thick, brush influenced strokes) for the later stages of this painting. My next task will be to transfer my grid drawing onto the canvas using a charcoal method I learned from a man named Bill Martin over on Wet Canvas. Stay tuned!