More and more progress...

In spite of heavy business took some days of and spent one painting. Started with the second layer of the dress. Also dimmed the color of the baloon, I like striking pink but this color....

Herewith a detail of the dress and the wrinkles of it... Some parts might need a 3rd layer.

Preparing for the hair....

Today I started with repainting the underdrawing of the hair. Because I wasn't sure how to started I only indicated the hair in the original underpainting. Last drawing the hair ended up like a bundle of straw....Hopefully this will help me in creating more realistic hair.

Old Hair

New Hair

Although it looks that the har is almost overengineered I think it is okay for now. I will lose a lot of detail during the two or three layers glazing I need.

First layer of dress completed....

Today I finsihed the first layer of the dress, more work then expected.. and some layers to go. However the effect is as expected (even better...). Tomorrow I start detailing out the underpainting of the hair.

Wrinkles in the dress

Today I started with coloring the dress using Rembrandt's Ultramarine Blue. A very powerfull but nicely transparant blue. I use a very thin glace with a lot of pigment in there. This shows almost no color on the dark stripes but shows well on the white stripes. Next layer the color will show in full on the darks as well. The white stripes will be uplighted with Titan White using the blue for shadows in the wrinkles. The wrinkels in the dark strips will be highlighted as well.

The detail picture will show more detail on the wrinkles:

Stumbling on...

I know I did it myself.... painting so many bricks and floor elements. It is a hard job to paint everything in one color with different tones. Trying to make 1 whole of the painting. Some of the yellowish (Still the grain) is cooled with violet (sand and floor tiles) and highlights are worked out with warmed titan white. The talon (broken stone) is painted with 1 layer of warmed still de grain. This in order to relfect the sand stone of the orignal.

What a difference a daylight lamp makes.....

This week I decided that I have been brave and surprised myself with a daylight easellamp. What a difference that makes painting durin day and night! Compleet new colors on your painting.....

Today I have spot glazed the wall with oxide red transparent and worked out all highlights with titan white warmed with still the grain yellow. I am quit happy with the result. The next layer, a very thin glaze of probaly transparant white and/or ultramarin blue will cool down the colors and bring these more together. Not so happy with the balloon, need to cool down this color as well. But will keep that to the end.

The Wall, first layer..

Today I've finished the first layer on the wall. This layer is the color Still de Grain with highlights in Titan White. It still looks like what it is: a colored underpainting. Although some of the bricks in the wall already start looking like a brick I seriously hope that the next layer will bring me more to reality...

Entering the next stage

For those who asked what is the story behind the painting.....

When your history is one with all what used to be nice is broken

Someday somewhere even you will see a spark of love
Put on your nicest dress and start heading for the exit
Run for the light and leave the all the broken parts behind
If there is no exit you could decide to create one yourself
You could draw a new sparkling world, full of love

Entering the next stage, finished almost with the underpainting (corrected some perspective errors and added some more stone.... have to do some shading), I started with coloring the sky. This shows immediate the effect that I want to achieve, a real breaktrough.

The glazing of the wall is started. I use for the first layer(s) Rembrandt Oils. color Still de Grain. The medium used is Scheveningen Oil Medium. The color still the grain is a slightly darkish kind of yellow, highly transparent but with a lot of pigment. The color layer is applied as a very thin film, most of the details of the underpainting will be seen through the film. The highlights of the underpainting are worked out with Titan White while the glace is still wet.

Lots of progress on the floor...

Today a good day after a week full of illness (flu). I decide to have a new session on the painting and painted the floor and some scenary like the broken timpaal with the picture of some Greece godness.
Next time I'll start to correct some errors in the wall and will make a decision if and if yes what I will place in the arch.

Tiles and stones...

Finally decided what to use as underground. Just following now the original and make a broken tile floor, partially covered with sand and small rocks..... Also decided that the timbal should look like marmer from the beginning and started to repaint the structure.

Milestone completed!

Finally I managed to sit down and to complete the wall on the painting and made a start with the other scenery in front. I have a clear idea now about the structure of the street and will make some fine progress next weeks. In front of the broken timbaal there will be some more stone and rocks.

There is some more work to do on the right wall in order to get it straight.

Hair...

After a few days of hectic communication training finally got the courage and started with the underpainting for the hair, showing more and more of the concept of the drawing. Will finish the hair this week and maybe the rest of the underpainting (challencing ambition)... Have to do a lot more on the hair (high lights, some more contrast etc.

Lazy Sunday

Not much to do this Sunday except a short visit to some frends... So picked up the brushes and made an attempt to do a serious par tof the arch.

And still looking for a good tutorial on the hair...

Spare hours..

Today I had a few spare hours alone at home. Definitely picked the opportunity to paint the arch once more. I'll give the painting one week to dry and then start with the hair. Already struggling what to place on the foreground. I show some drawings next week.

Note that the dark paint of the arch is still wet and will bleach towards the other stones (I hope....)

Still fighting the perspective...

In spite of a terrible workload I still manage to find time for painting ! Decided to whipe out most of the Arch and to redraw (still fighting perspective); the first stones will be redrawn as well. I also did work on bricks and painted a temperarily head (some of my family found it frighting to see a headless woman... ) while waiing my bricks to dry... I'm planning to paint long blond hair.

Waiting and bricks...

Still wating till the paint on the left side is dry enough to start drawing the head and hair. So started with painting the right side break-out wall. Stones, stones and more stones for the next weeks... I am happy to see that the concept starts to work. Still strugling with cleaning the board!

Correcting The Perspective

Yep! I have to correct he perspective of my drawing. Using the right gum right now will help definitely....

Definitely improved the view of the drawing. The Perspective brings some dramtic in it as well.


Also I decided to paint already a part of the break-out wall.


I have to explain why I didn't paint the head yet. One of the most challenging parts of painting figures is to have realistic hair painted...
The hair will for sure go over the shoulders and part of the wall.


If you ever have tried to paint a wall and to keep you already painted hair in shape....


I will wait with the hair for 1 week giving the underpainting time to dry. I might continue with the other side in order to check the effect of the break out wall.

Stepping up

Today has been my regular day off, usually that means: work like hell to keep on pace with the office work left over. Basically I don't mind: having a very good cappucino and good music on the radio my production is 5 x better then in the office. So after 2 hours work I decided that I can enjoy painting for several hours now. My wife is at work (sadly because Friday are mostly quality days...)


This is what I produced today (still didn't change the drawing!)

I think the concept will work! I am planning to use a very nice  and transparent light blue for the dress like Cerulean blue. The values set in the underpainting will give me the complementary darker blues. Working out the light stripes with Titan White will make it quite flashy... I think..... hope......

First drawing and tryout underpainting

So I am there: started to draw and immediate a beginning with the underpainting. This more or less to see if the color concept I have in my head will work. You have to think in values first......

After drawing and looking at the painting I think I might have a problem with my old friend The Perspectieve. IT AIN'T RIGHT!!! I must have been focussing to much on my raster guidelines..... 

Okay, that's why they have invented gums. After a few minutes gumming the whole painting went a dark kind kind of smokey gray. Sometimes I have all the luck of the world; used a synthetic gum in state of mother nature's own rubber.....

I will first do some more painting to see if the smoke will come through...

From concept to board

Okay, I'm there! I know what I want to paint this time. It will be close to the concept made in PS but a slightly different cut in order to have a better composition.

The painting will be a big one this time, width 60 cm and height 90 cm.

Techniques that I will use are:

• Coating a MDF panel with Talens Amsterdam Acrylic, black on the backside and a mixture of Titan White and Black (Yes! That will give grey! But with a lot more light density than ready-for-use gray). Usually I apply 3 - 5 layers, sanded in between with grain 400, the last layer I sand with 600.
• I use a raster of 5 * 5 cm to transfer the the image from paper to board. I will draw only the headlines and work this out on the board.
• The underpainting will be made using Talens Rembrandt Oil Burned Umber and Titan White. I start working from a midtone (exactly the tone between the umber and white). I try to have enough contrast in the underdrawing already. Focussing a little bit more on the white (high lights) rather then the shades. It is easier to darken then to light....I first finalize the whole underpainting before I start with colors.
• The colors will be applied using the glazing technique. For colors I use also Talens Rembrandt Oils

Now I will start drawing....

Materializing the concept

After some raw sketches I decide to use Photoshop as electronic scratch path and to workout the concept into some more concrete.

Some thinking and trying brought me to this concept picture:

Probably I will make a cut out as final. Have to sleep about this....

Choosing the main subject

For a few days I have been in doubt over the main subject of the painting.


However during reading some magazines I noticed a advertisal for some summer clothing. The photo showed a running lady in a width cotton summer dress. I really loved the picture and decided to use this as the pose that I would like to have my subject.


Choosing this picture immediate raise some questions:
? Who has the intellectual property of this picture? The magazine redaction is not willing to give any information also the firm delivering this clothing is dazzled with this kind of questions. So having permission is difficult/
? The quality of the picture is poor (at his best...). The magazine is not the highest quality print. Details are hard to see.
? Shall I use the concept of the lovely summerly Greece blue colors?

I will start with doing some Photoshop work to see if my concept will materialize by seeing it on the screen. I am not afraid to admit that I use PS to help me sometimes. I know for sure that even Rembrandt and Leonardo used all help that they could get (and they were much more talented drawers then I am......)

The beginning

After finalizing a painting a serious number of ideas pop-up regarding creating a new painting. Although I usually work on 1 or 2 painting simultaniously ( 1 at home and 1 at course) this process is always painfull. This blog will show you the creative process in creating my current painting, called "The Exit".

What to choose.....?  During my last holiday I spend a week in the lovely city of Side (Turkye) enjovying sun,, Turkish food and the tremendous number of ruines over there. I am more or less addicted to ruines, my imagination can go wild thinking that 2.000 years ago somebody walked the same stones I do. I made a serious number of photos, some really with the idea to use these as examples for paintings.

Here is a picture of the old entrance gate of Side. I really like the this very big gate (approx 15 meters high!). The build-in and broken insert gate makes it dramatic,

I decide to use this concept in my new painting as background but still in dbout what to use in front.

One of my ideas was to make a slightly different portrait of a female preferablly somebody I know like my daughter (No Dad! Not again!!) or my wife or sister.

I already started to draw some concepts but was not completely satisfied untill.......