On the Drawing Board: Works in Progress
Below I've compiled all the progress photos from one of my latest artwork "Crow and Pitcher" as well as compiled some photos of where I am at so far with a new alligator and monkey-themed piece.
Crow and Pitcher
18 x 24 inches
Mixed Media on Aquabord
Step 1: I stain and splash up the Aquabord with various acrylic inks - here I used sepia, gold, white, silver, burnt umber, peach, crimson and lemon yellow inks.
Step 2, I sketch out a very rough composition in chalk pencil and then put an acrylic base layer down. Here I mostly used Payne's Grey, Titanium White, a little Cadmium Red, and Dioxazine Purple on the crow, and then later, on the water pitcher I used mostly Titanium White and Unbleached Titanium White. After the base layer is put down, I then fill in the details with ink pen.
Step 3: Some of the composition is decided beforehand but some of it I decide as I am working on the artwork. In this case, I decided the composition would be stronger if I added two more crows, in this case they are designs of crows on the pitcher. I also thought this would make a nice juxtaposition between the "real crow" and the painted ones. This also is a nice foil between my different styles of art - my more abstracted forms with my slightly more naturalistic work.
Step 4: During the final work on the piece I decided to add in some my 'fauxsaics', or watercolor paper I hand-colored, then cut up and applied to the piece with gel medium. I then varnished the entire painting several times and painted the sides the panel.
This next piece I started a couple of days ago. It took two days for the inks to dry on the board before I started sketching out my composition.
This work is inspired by "Illustration of a Caiman" by Maria Sibylla Merian, though I have changed up the composition and used my own style in the execution of the painting. I mentioned this artist in a previous post which you can read here.
Current work in progress:
to be titled
24 x 36
Ink and Acrylic on Aquabord
Step 1: Inking the board: On this piece I used silver, crimson, lemon yellow, peach, white, burnt umber and sepia inks
Step 2: Roughing out a composition and then filling in a base layer in Titanium White and Unbleached Titanium White acrylic paints.
Step 3: filling in details with ink pen. At this point I was still undecided how the full composition was going to work
Step 4: I left a gap in the alligator's mouth because I was either going to add in a snake or a jaguar to the piece, and the alligator was going to be biting its tail.
Step 5: I scrapped the idea of a snake or a jaguar and decided to have a monkey's tail caught between the alligator's teeth instead. So I drew a rough sketch of a Capuchin monkey toward the rear of the alligator with its tail stretching back over to the alligator's head / mouth
To be continued.....
This is as far as I got today. I hope to finish up the piece within the next week, sooner if I can help it, though the next 4-5 days for me are very busy as i have to help to install a show at JAM Gallery, rehearse with my band(s), and travel to meet with a doctor to get my eyes evaluated for an operation, among other things.
I'll post here with updates on the alligator and monkey piece as I have them, or follow along on my Facebook page as well as my Instagram account.
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