Everyone gets a scone! This is watercolor and pen on watercolor paper, 5×7 inches.
Witchy Scone Scone
I have at least one more little watercolor drawing in the works, will post it when done. I also want to do more stuff with witches…witches, medusa, sphinxes, and Egyptian stuff! 
P.S. This is pretty much the first thing I have done with a figure in it, so I’m pretty excited about that.
I just recently started messing with Conté crayons and tried drawing this Leonardo piece a few times. This one is 8 x 10 inches, conté crayons on lightly textured paper:
The Virgin Mary in conte crayons, after Leonardo da Vinci
I like using Conté! It’s not as messy as I first thought, and I think it’s really well-suited to these classical-style drawings. Being able to add highlights is important to me, and is something that I miss when drawing with pencil. I also like being able to blend with my fingers and re-work areas many times. On the drawing above I toned the paper first with sanguine Conté and blended it with a paper towel.I’ve found that I need to work in a larger scale than I normally do, and that the paper texture really matters. I definitely plan on doing a lot more with these and am happy I have a new medium to play around with
Here is another recent small drawing that I did…this is silent-era actress Zoe Rae.
It’s normal graphite pencil and Col-erase colored pencil on blue paper, about 2 x 2 inches.
Zoe Rae drawing
Phew, I have finally finished my version of a Jean-Baptiste Greuze painting, “The White Hat”. I started this way back in June of 2009, and finished it in late February 2010. This is oil on canvas.
The White Hat - after Greuze, by Airn LeBus. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches, 2010.
The White Hat - after Greuze (detail)
I’m not sure if there was an issue with my original drawing or if something happened whilst painting, but I started to realize the facial features were really out of place and spent the last several sessions altering and moving things around, even completely painting over an eye that had been nearly finished. It was difficult but I’m glad I changed it because it looks much better now.
I used a direct technique, no underpainting…the paint is pretty thin, and very matte/non-glossy at this point (I might oil it out and/or varnish it later). If I were to do another painting in this vein, I might try painting more thickly, and with more contrast between the darks and lights. I do like the soft feel this has though, I think it works with the subject matter and color scheme.
I had some difficulties with the source photo I used, it seemed inaccurate contrast-wise and was missing a lot of detail that I had to try and “make up” or guess. The hat and clothing and stuff was also kind of difficult to figure out from the photo, and I tried to do my own version of some of it but really at my skill level should have probably just stuck to what Greuze had done. In any case I am happy with the overall results and definitely learned a lot and have a nice painting to hang on my wall.
The total time I spent on painting only was about 24 hours, usually in 1.5-hour sessions. In addition to that there was the drawing, preparing the canvas, transferring the drawing, and stuff like trying to figure out how to fix the features when they were awry (which took a pretty good chunk of time).
I finished this small painting of Lila Lee from the film Lemora a few days ago. The actress Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith played the part in the movie.
I started this in September of last year, working on it pretty infrequently; only about 8 sessions of painting over a six-month period. I always have a lot of projects going at once…
Here’s the finished painting:
"Lila Lee" by Airn LeBus. Oil on wood panel, 2.5 x 3 inches, 2010.
Initially I was going to paint this with a raw umber dead layer underpainting and glaze color over it, but it was looking too dark and I liked the way it was already, so I just added some color to it and left it as-is.
OK, I changed major stuff on this painting and it’s done for real now. I based her new face a bit on Lila Lee, i.e. Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith in the film Lemora.
This isn’t the last oil painting based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that I’ll be doing, I would love to do another dark-ish one, perhaps with her falling or with the caterpillar
Alice's Picnic in Wonderland
Here’s a detail of it:
Alice's Picnic in Wonderland (detail)
Hexenring linocut
I finished my first linocut, it’s of a ‘fairy circle’ or toadstool ring around a grave. In German it’s called a hexenring.
This is 4×5 inches. Linocuts are pretty interesting stuffs, you have to carve everything into the linoleum block in reverse, and then roll ink onto it and imprint on paper. I drew it all on the block directly in pencil, then pen, and then used a few different tools to carve it out. It took a long time :). I will probably do another one, but will either work larger or a bit less detailed…I tried to cram too much detail than is possible with the normal linocut tools so I had to scratch stuff out with a tool designed for scratchboard, which was kind of a pain. Still fun overall, and I like the old medieval feel of the process, like you are practicing an art form that is very old.
I finished my oil painting portrait of Brother Cadfael. This is based on the excellent show starring Sir Derek Jacobi…it’s a favorite of mine. I started this painting in late March of this year and spent about 24 hours on it over 6 months (including the initial sketch).
To see all 3 posts about this painting, search for ‘cadfael’ then click a post.
Here are photos of the painting both framed and unframed:
Brother Cadfael by Airn LeBus, 8x10 inches, oil on panel, 2009.
Brother Cadfael by Airn LeBus, 8x10 inches, oil on panel, 2009.
I used my current standard technique of making a photocopy of my original drawing so that it will stay intact when I transfer it onto the panel or canvas. I then transferred it by rubbing the back of the photocopy with soft 4B pencil and tracing over it with a pen onto the panel. I then used a fine sharpie over that (on the panel). I put a transparent imprimatura over it to seal it, wash away the pencil, and give some interesting brushstrokes in the background which may show through a bit later.
Next I painted the face as a “dead layer” with just raw umber and white, over many sessions. Once I was mostly satisfied with that I started glazing transparent color over the face. I also added more opaque parts and highlights, and fixed a few things with the features…although they are still a bit off, I settled with the look of it. The hair and robe/cowl were more directly painted but still with some glazing.
Regrettably, I didn’t plan the inscription out properly so it took a while to figure out how to arrange it, what to put, and to actually paint it. It took a few sessions…I used paintings by Albrecht Durer and Hans Holbein the Younger as inspirations for the inscription look and feel. I wrote Cadfael’s full name, “Cadfael ap [son of] Meilyr ap Dafydd” and my little symbol of a cross, eye, crown, and initials ARL. I find that painting text, especially when there is no initial drawing or guide, to be quite difficult…but I enjoy the challenge. Compared to plopping on some text in Photoshop on some digital art, it’s like the contrast between walking into a store and buying a shirt vs. cutting the cloth, designing, and sewing one yourself
I put it in a dark , sturdy, and somewhat simple frame which fits well with the Benedictine nature of Cadfael. I also had played with having his gaze pointed at the viewer but it seemed to fit him better to have him looking off to the side. Pretty happy with this one…overall the mood and look are what I was going for.
(Update 01-04-10: I changed this painting, and switched the pictures here to the new version. See the Alice in Wonderland category for posts about the changes.)
I finished my Alice in Wonderland painting. It’s called Alice’s Picnic in Wonderland and is 11×14 inches, oil on canvas. This will be at the Alice in Wonkaland show at Muddy Waters in Santa Barbara in July.
Here’s the finished painting:
Alice's Picnic in Wonderland
I made extra sure I was happy with the drawing before transferring it to the canvas, so once I started painting it went very smoothly. Almost every painting session was very good and the whole thing overall was very satisfying. The hedge maze took a lot of time to draw, but once it had been planned out it was pretty simple to paint. If you look close you can see she is wearing a little scarab cameo…I felt the need to put something Egyptian in there. I like the contrast of the grinning Cheshire cat (which is totally based on John Tenniel’s famous illustrations) with Alice’s somber expression. I wanted this to be a little dark without doing the whole overdone Gothic Alice thing (which I am waaay sick of).
Here’s a detail view:
Alice's Picnic in Wonderland (detail)
The main thing I would have done differently is use a good reference for the face, which wasn’t based on anyone specific. The face is small, like an inch high, so tiny brushstrokes yielded big changes…it was pretty tough. Since it’s on canvas the texture also makes the painting look a little different depending on what angle you look at it, etc, so there was a ton of stepping back, looking in other light, upside down, and the like. Well, I do a lot of that normally anyway. I did use an old vintage photo for the general figure reference but changed the dress, face, head shape, hair, etc. I didn’t use a grid or anything, I have been doing a grid when I am studying a master work and trying to copy it almost exactly but whenever possible I’m working on my drawing skillz without a grid.
My palette for this was something along the lines of mars black, titanium white, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow light hue, vermillion hue, burnt umber, raw umber, burnt sienna, french ultramarine, and phthalo blue. The greens are mostly black + cadmium yellow light with some earth tones and yellow ochre. These are all pretty much the standard colors I use lately, except I am going to switch to cadmium red hue since it looks very similar to the vermillion but does not contain lead. I use that in the flesh tones: yellow ochre + red + white + burnt umber in darker areas. I hear that using a complementary color in the shadows is supposed to be nice but so far it hasn’t worked out too well for me
This painting was pretty much “direct”…I did not do a monochromatic underpainting for the flesh tones, like I normally do when painting on panel for portrait stuff (this is on canvas).
I spent about 6 hours over 2 weeks drawing this, and then about 16 hours painting it. That is about half the time my last two paintings took, this was a quick one since everything just fell into place, mostly. I started it in early May and finished in late June.
For other posts about Alice and my other Wonderland-related paintings, see the Alice in Wonderland category.
I’m including this miniature painting in the Alice in Wonkaland show. Alice Liddell was the real life inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This is based on a photo by Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll. It’s 2 x 2.75 inches, acrylic on wood panel, 2009. I put it in a little frame and painted on it “Alice Pleasance Liddell 1852-1934″.
Miniature painting of Alice Pleasance Liddell by Airn LeBus
See the Alice in Wonderland category for my other related stuff including a larger picnic scene with another Alice.
This is my first acrylic painting in more than a year, I normally paint with oils but I had limited time on this one since it was for a show and I used up all my time in the first attempt, which was oil. I abandoned that first attempt and redid the whole thing. This acrylic one took about 4-6 hours over about a week, in maybe 5 sessions. It’s the smallest painting I have tried and it was really fun! To give idea of size, one eye is about the size of half a rice grain. I will be doing some additional miniatures in the next few months, probably in oil though.
I did seven small drawings of this same thing, but really the second drawing was the best-looking, although kind of cartoony:
Alice Liddell drawing
I used a different drawing for the first version of the painting. I might post that painting later since I am changing it. I spent a TON of time on that first painting, which was in oil, and kept having problems with features being misaligned, etc etc etc. I kept making big changes to it and I think it was mostly because the original sketch (again, not shown here) was not correct. I redrew the whole thing a few times until I thought it was right and used that for the basis of the acrylic painting above.
If you want to learn more about Alice Liddell, Charles Dodgson, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I would really recommend a cool book which I just discovered called The Other Alice. I bought it used on Amazon but it seems readily available wherever. It’s kind of both a kid’s and adult’s book and is chock full of illustrations.
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