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.......